History of St. Louis, Missouri (1763–1803)
Encyclopedia
The history of St. Louis, Missouri from 1763 to 1803 was marked by the transfer of French Louisiana
to Spanish control, the founding of the city of St. Louis, its slow growth and role in the American Revolution
under the rule of the Spanish, and the transfer of the area to American control in the Louisiana Purchase
.
, a New Orleans merchant. Maxent quickly engaged the service of Jean Francois Le Dee and Pierre Laclède
to build trading posts in the Illinois Country. Shortly before the upriver departure of Laclède in August 1763, word arrived that France had ceded its territory on the east bank of the Mississippi to the United Kingdom
according to the Treaty of Paris (1763)
, giving new significance to the trading posts on the west bank. The group led by Laclède included his young stepson Auguste Chouteau
and roughly twenty boatmen with a cargo of trade merchandise.
On November 3, 1763, the group arrived at Ste. Genevieve and Fort de Chartres, where they stored their merchandise while preparing to build a new settlement farther north. In December, Laclède and Chouteau scouted potential locations on the west bank, with Laclède determining the suitability of a site with a gentle slope ending in a rocky bluff above the river's floodwaters. Laclède marked the area and instructed Chouteau to return in the spring to clear the land for construction. The men returned to Fort de Chartres for the winter to recruit workers, but in February, Laclède sent Chouteau and 30 men to begin construction of cabins and a shed for supplies. The settlement was established on February 15, 1765.
Laclède himself arrived in April 1763 to inspect the site, at which point he named the village St. Louis and provided detailed plans for laying out streets and for construction of his headquarters. The plan of the village was similar to that of New Orleans, including a public marketplace centered on the riverfront and a grid street pattern. The market, Laclède's headquarters, and a church stood in a line of blocks west from the bank of the river, and the market block was separated from the river by a limestone block ledge. Three streets ran parallel to the river: First Street (also known as La Rue Royale, La Grande Rue, and Main Street), Second Street (also known as La Rue d'Eglise or Church Street), and Third Street (also known as La Rue des Granges or Barn Street). North of the market block and perpendicular to the river was Market Street (also known as La Rue de la Place or La Rue Bonhomme); south of the market block were Walnut Street (also known as La Rue de la Tour) and Chestnut Street (also known as La Rue Missouri).
The settlement began to gain French Creole residents from Cahokia and Fort de Chartres quickly during 1763 and 1764 due to fear of poor treatment by British soldiers who were sent to Illinois after the Treaty of Paris. As the primary civil and business leader in the village, Laclède awarded lots to the new settlers. By early 1765, some forty families had moved from east bank settlements to St. Louis. In October 1765, the transfer of the east bank to the United Kingdom was completed, and the French Lieutenant Governor Louis St. Ange de Bellerive officially moved the upper Louisiana capital to St. Louis. After his arrival, St. Ange was responsible for awarding lots, and land transfers began to be recorded in Livres Terriens (land books). By 1770, St. Ange had awarded eighty-one lots, which encompassed nearly all of the village's forty-nine available blocks.
in 1762, the first Spanish governor of the territory, Antonio de Ulloa
, arrived in New Orleans only in March 1766. Ulloa did not rule for long, however, and was expelled from New Orleans by French colonists in the Louisiana Rebellion of 1768. He was replaced as governor by Alejandro O'Reilly
, who suppressed the rebellion and who appointed Don Pedro Piernas as lieutanent governor of upper Louisiana in August 1769. The French commandant of the village, St. Ange, transferred formal control to Piernas on May 20, 1770, and St. Ange was named assistant to Piernas and special adviser on Indian affairs. After the transfer, Piernas confirmed St. Ange's and Laclède's land grants and rented Laclède's headquarters as government offices, and Spanish soldiers provided local security.
Early landowners in St. Louis were required to enclose their lots with wooden or stone fencing for security reasons, and lots contained sheds, barns, vegetable gardens and sometimes fruit trees. No retail or commercial district existed, and business generally was conducted in homes or in the market square. Houses ranged from one-room huts to large, multiroom buildings such as Laclède's stone headquarters. Most homes, however, were square, of poteaux-en-terre construction, and with steep oak shingle roofs with long overhangs in typical Creole design. The residents depended on common land
south of the town for firewood and pasture land, which extended from Third Street west nearly three miles, north to Mill Creek, and south for several miles until the 1790s when it was truncated for the new settlement of Carondelet, Missouri. The commons were continually reduced in size after the mid-1780s due to land grants to new settlers, and the remaining land not granted became Lafayette Park in 1838. In addition to access to the commons, each lot owner was granted individual use of a field strip measuring one arpent
wide and forty arpents long. Each strip was part of a larger group of fields that were platted at the same time; a total of four such fields were created between 1766 and 1769, and by the 1790s nearly 6,000 acres were under cultivation around St. Louis. In spite of this agriculture, fur trading was the major focus of many residents.
Although the villagers were nominally Roman Catholic, they were not inclined toward religiosity. Upon the arrival of Piernas to St. Louis in 1769, there was no church and no enforcement of laws relating to religious observances. Within a month after taking office from St. Ange in May 1770, Piernas had urged the residents to build a log chapel on the church block, which was dedicated by Father Pierre Gibault
of Kaskaskia on June 24, 1770. Gibault officiated at the chapel regularly in spite of being under the authority of the bishop of Quebec and being a British subject, and he performed dozens of masses and sixty-four baptisms until 1772. In May 1772, a Capuchin
priest named Valentine became the first resident priest in St. Louis (although he technically was the chaplain to the Spanish garrison), and through early 1776 he baptized 64 French, 24 blacks, and 19 Indians, and he officiated at 72 funerals and 4 weddings. The estate of former commandant St. Ange contributed funds toward the building of a new church in 1774, but it was delayed by the death of its carpenter until mid-1776. In May 1776, Valentine was replaced by another Capuchin, Father Bernard de Limpach, who became the first pastor of the St. Louis parish, and with this and the completion of the new church building, Catholic religious observance became a customary component of life in St. Louis.
Among the earliest problems confronting the Spanish commanders of St. Louis was the issue of Indian slavery, which was abolished by a decree written by Spanish Governor O'Reilly and published by Piernas in May 1770. However, the ban was openly violated by St. Louisans during the summer of 1770, and Piernas requested guidance from the new Spanish governor, Luis de Unzaga (who had taken office in March 1770 after O'Reilly retired to Havana). The new governor and Piernas interpreted the abolishment by agreeing to halt further purchases of Indian slaves but allowing the retention of current slaves and any children born to them. These Indian slaves generally were replaced by African slaves via manumission, although some remained in bondage until the 1830s when freedom suits
led to final Indian emancipation. In 1772, a census determined the population of the village to be 577, including 444 whites (285 males and 159 females) and 193 African slaves, with no Indian slaves reported due to their technical illegality.
Upon the promotion of Piernas to a new post in New Orleans in 1775, control of St. Louis passed to Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Cruzat, who continued the lax enforcement of Spanish policies common under Piernas. The population of the village increased to nearly 700, and in 1775, St. Louis merchants exported several hundred quintal
s of flour to New Orleans. In 1778, however, Cruzat was removed as commander of St. Louis upon the orders of Spanish Governor Bernardo Galvez
, who was responding to British complaints that Cruzat had allowed Spanish agents to violate British territory in Illinois. The same year, Pierre Laclède, founder of St. Louis, died while returning from a trade expedition to New Orleans. Galvez replaced Cruzat with Fernando de Leyba
, who moved the government offices from Laclède's former stone house and headquarters and sold the property to Auguste Chouteau.
, an American colonel who was leading the Illinois campaign and had recently captured the town of Kaskaskia, to a two-day banquet and reception in his honor. Leyba also encouraged St. Louis merchants to supply Clark's forces with weapons and provided guarantees of credit for Clark.
By early 1779, the British commander Henry Hamilton
had retaken the town of Vincennes, and his forces were advancing on Kaskaskia. Hamilton informed Leyba and Galvez that if American forces retreated to Spanish territory, he would pursue them there and attack Spanish forces, likely attacking St. Louis. However, Clark managed to defeat the British forces and capture Hamilton himself in February 1779, averting the threat to the town. After the entrance of Spain on the side of the Americans in June 1779, the British developed a strategy to attack St. Louis and other Spanish settlements along the Mississippi using fur traders and Indians.
The British force departed Prairie du Chien on May 2, 1780 with more than 200 traders and Indians. Prior to their departure, however, an American trader had alerted Leyba in St. Louis as to the plan, giving time to develop defensive measures around the town. Only one of four planned masonry towers was built, near the current intersection of Fourth and Walnut streets, and the rest of the town was surrounded by more than a mile of entrenchments. As a British force of nearly 1,000 approached in early May (augmented along its journey by more Indian forces), more than 150 militia took up positions in the fortifications around St. Louis.
On May 26, the British and Indian forces attacked the town of St. Louis, but were forced to retreat due to the fortifications and defections of some Indian forces. In spite of their defeat, the British attack destroyed much of St. Louis' agricultural lands and cattle stock, killed 23 residents, wounded 7, and captured 25 as prisoners. The battle losses and his inability to pay merchants for supplies given to the Americans damaged Leyba's reputation in St. Louis, and Leyba died after a lengthy illness on June 28, 1780. Galvez quickly reappointed former commander Francisco Cruzat, who arrived in St. Louis with ammunition, weapons and supplies to defend the town. In late 1780, Cruzat sent an expedition force from St. Louis to attack British forces at Fort St. Joseph, which successfully destroyed any future British plans to attack St. Louis or other Mississippi outposts.
After 1781, the British permanently evacuated the lands east of the Mississippi, leaving the land to the Americans. A lack of effective American government there led many remaining Creole families to emigrate to St. Louis from 1780 to 1783, bringing about a 19% increase in the population to about 900, not including slaves. Among these families was that of Gabriel Cerre and Charles Gratiot, merchants from Kaskaskia and Cahokia. Upon his arrival in St. Louis, Cerre was counted as the wealthiest merchant in the town, owning more than 850 acres of land around St. Louis and 6,000 acres along the Meramec River. Cerre's daughters married into the elite of Creole society, including eldest daughter Marie Anne who married Pierre-Louis Panet
of Montreal in 1781; second daughter Marie Therese who married Auguste Chouteau, co-founder of St. Louis in 1786, and the youngest daughter Julia married Antoine Soulard, a surveyor who added significant property additions at the periphery of St. Louis.
Charles Gratiot
, the second major merchant to relocate to St. Louis at the end of the American Revolution, also added to the wealth of the community. His English and trade skills allowed him to aid the Americans during the war, but in 1781, he relocated to the west bank, where he married Victoire Chouteau, daughter of Laclède and sister to Auguste Chouteau. During the 1790s, he conducted trade with Americans migrating west, and he also operated a mill and distillery on his farm to the west of the village. Eventually through land grants and purchases, Gratiot became one of the largest landowners in the area, with his primary farm stretching west from present-day Kingshighway Boulevard to far beyond the city limits to present-day Big Bend Boulevard, and from the northern edge of present-day Forest Park
to Chippewa Avenue on the south. During his lifetime, Gratiot and his wife raised nine children to maturity in status and wealth (especially his son Charles Gratiot
, a significant engineer and soldier), forming the basis of another group of St. Louis elites. The two merchant families of Gratiot and Cerre intermarried with the Chouteau family to create a society in the 1780s and 1790s that was dominated by French Creoles with marital ties to Spanish government officials, including lieutenant governors Piernas and Cruzat.
Throughout the 1790s, the area near St. Louis expanded as small farmers sold their lands to the Cerres, Gratiots, Soulards, or Chouteaus in St. Louis. These farmers moved to outlying towns founded after St. Louis, including Carondelet (originally called Delor's Village or Vide Poche), which was founded in 1767 by an ex-naval officer near the mouth of the River Des Peres. The village in 1796 had 181 residents, and it normally produced food surpluses for the area. Another of the area villages was St. Charles, which was founded on the north bank of the Missouri about 20 miles northwest of St. Louis. Its population in 1800 was roughly 600. The third major satellite village in the area, Florissant
, was founded on the south bank of the Missouri about 15 miles northwest of St. Louis and had a population of nearly 300. By 1800, only 43% of the St. Louis district's population (excluding St. Charles district) lived within the village of St. Louis (1,039 of 2,447).
Some of these small farmers and artisans, upon hearing news of the successes of the French Revolution
, began agititating in the late 1790s in support of French ideals. On September 22, 1796, a group of St. Louis artisans led a "noisy celebration" in support of a return of Louisiana to an egalitarian French government. In a show of strength, the Spanish governor sent a fleet of galleys and soldiers with military supplies to reinforce Spanish control of St. Louis.
However, even while the Spanish colonial officials were trying to maintain control of Louisiana, the Spanish government was attempting to transfer the territory to France. The Spanish government secretly returned the unprofitable Louisiana territory to France in October 1800 in the Treaty of San Ildefonso
. After a promise by French leader Napoleon Bonaparte not to sell Louisiana without giving Spain the right of first refusal
, the Spanish officially transferred control of Louisiana to France in October 1802. However, Spanish administrators remained in charge of St. Louis throughout the time of French ownership.
Upon the transfer of control, the Spanish administrator in New Orleans (upon Napoleon's orders) revoked the right of deposit for American merchants at New Orleans. This encouraged the United States
under President
Thomas Jefferson
to send a team of negotiators to France in early 1803 with the purpose of gaining navigation rights on the Mississippi; however, Napoleon instead sold all of Louisiana, including St. Louis, to the United States on April 30, 1803, as part of the Louisiana Purchase
. The treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate in November 1803, and the transfer of power from Spain was made official in St. Louis at a ceremony called Three Flags Day
. On March 8, 1804, the flag of Spain
was lowered at the government buildings in St. Louis and, according to local tradition, the flag of France
was raised. On March 10, 1804, the French flag was replaced by the flag of the United States
.
French Louisiana
The term French Louisiana refers to two distinct regions:* first, to colonial French Louisiana, comprising the massive, middle section of North America claimed by France; and,...
to Spanish control, the founding of the city of St. Louis, its slow growth and role in the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
under the rule of the Spanish, and the transfer of the area to American control in the Louisiana Purchase
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America of of France's claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803. The U.S...
.
Founding and early plans
In mid-1763, French Governor Jean-Jacques Blaise d'Abbadie granted a trade monopoly over the west upper Mississippi region to Gilbert Antoine de St. MaxentGilbert Antoine de St. Maxent
Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent was a merchant and military officer who played a major role in development of the Louisiana Territory during its era as New France and New Spain....
, a New Orleans merchant. Maxent quickly engaged the service of Jean Francois Le Dee and Pierre Laclède
Pierre Laclède
Pierre Laclède or Pierre Laclède Liguest was a French fur trader who, with his young assistant and "stepson" Auguste Chouteau, founded St...
to build trading posts in the Illinois Country. Shortly before the upriver departure of Laclède in August 1763, word arrived that France had ceded its territory on the east bank of the Mississippi to the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
according to the Treaty of Paris (1763)
Treaty of Paris (1763)
The Treaty of Paris, often called the Peace of Paris, or the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763, by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement. It ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War...
, giving new significance to the trading posts on the west bank. The group led by Laclède included his young stepson Auguste Chouteau
René Auguste Chouteau
Rene Auguste Chouteau , also known as Auguste Chouteau, was founder of St. Louis, Missouri, a successful fur trader and a politician. He and his partner had a monopoly for many years of fur trade with the large Osage tribe on the Missouri River...
and roughly twenty boatmen with a cargo of trade merchandise.
On November 3, 1763, the group arrived at Ste. Genevieve and Fort de Chartres, where they stored their merchandise while preparing to build a new settlement farther north. In December, Laclède and Chouteau scouted potential locations on the west bank, with Laclède determining the suitability of a site with a gentle slope ending in a rocky bluff above the river's floodwaters. Laclède marked the area and instructed Chouteau to return in the spring to clear the land for construction. The men returned to Fort de Chartres for the winter to recruit workers, but in February, Laclède sent Chouteau and 30 men to begin construction of cabins and a shed for supplies. The settlement was established on February 15, 1765.
Laclède himself arrived in April 1763 to inspect the site, at which point he named the village St. Louis and provided detailed plans for laying out streets and for construction of his headquarters. The plan of the village was similar to that of New Orleans, including a public marketplace centered on the riverfront and a grid street pattern. The market, Laclède's headquarters, and a church stood in a line of blocks west from the bank of the river, and the market block was separated from the river by a limestone block ledge. Three streets ran parallel to the river: First Street (also known as La Rue Royale, La Grande Rue, and Main Street), Second Street (also known as La Rue d'Eglise or Church Street), and Third Street (also known as La Rue des Granges or Barn Street). North of the market block and perpendicular to the river was Market Street (also known as La Rue de la Place or La Rue Bonhomme); south of the market block were Walnut Street (also known as La Rue de la Tour) and Chestnut Street (also known as La Rue Missouri).
The settlement began to gain French Creole residents from Cahokia and Fort de Chartres quickly during 1763 and 1764 due to fear of poor treatment by British soldiers who were sent to Illinois after the Treaty of Paris. As the primary civil and business leader in the village, Laclède awarded lots to the new settlers. By early 1765, some forty families had moved from east bank settlements to St. Louis. In October 1765, the transfer of the east bank to the United Kingdom was completed, and the French Lieutenant Governor Louis St. Ange de Bellerive officially moved the upper Louisiana capital to St. Louis. After his arrival, St. Ange was responsible for awarding lots, and land transfers began to be recorded in Livres Terriens (land books). By 1770, St. Ange had awarded eighty-one lots, which encompassed nearly all of the village's forty-nine available blocks.
Life under Spanish control
Although Spain nominally gained control of Louisiana according to the secret Treaty of FontainebleauTreaty of Fontainebleau (1762)
The Treaty of Fontainebleau was a secret agreement in which France ceded Louisiana to Spain. The treaty followed the last battle in the French and Indian War, the Battle of Signal Hill in September 1762, which confirmed British control of Canada. However, the associated Seven Years War continued...
in 1762, the first Spanish governor of the territory, Antonio de Ulloa
Antonio de Ulloa
Antonio de Ulloa y de la Torre-Girault was a Spanish general, explorer, author, astronomer, colonial administrator and the first Spanish governor of Louisiana.Rebellion of 1768]]....
, arrived in New Orleans only in March 1766. Ulloa did not rule for long, however, and was expelled from New Orleans by French colonists in the Louisiana Rebellion of 1768. He was replaced as governor by Alejandro O'Reilly
Alejandro O'Reilly
Alejandro O'Reilly , was a military reformer and Inspector-General of Infantry for the Spanish Empire in the second half of the 18th century...
, who suppressed the rebellion and who appointed Don Pedro Piernas as lieutanent governor of upper Louisiana in August 1769. The French commandant of the village, St. Ange, transferred formal control to Piernas on May 20, 1770, and St. Ange was named assistant to Piernas and special adviser on Indian affairs. After the transfer, Piernas confirmed St. Ange's and Laclède's land grants and rented Laclède's headquarters as government offices, and Spanish soldiers provided local security.
Early landowners in St. Louis were required to enclose their lots with wooden or stone fencing for security reasons, and lots contained sheds, barns, vegetable gardens and sometimes fruit trees. No retail or commercial district existed, and business generally was conducted in homes or in the market square. Houses ranged from one-room huts to large, multiroom buildings such as Laclède's stone headquarters. Most homes, however, were square, of poteaux-en-terre construction, and with steep oak shingle roofs with long overhangs in typical Creole design. The residents depended on common land
Common land
Common land is land owned collectively or by one person, but over which other people have certain traditional rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect firewood, or to cut turf for fuel...
south of the town for firewood and pasture land, which extended from Third Street west nearly three miles, north to Mill Creek, and south for several miles until the 1790s when it was truncated for the new settlement of Carondelet, Missouri. The commons were continually reduced in size after the mid-1780s due to land grants to new settlers, and the remaining land not granted became Lafayette Park in 1838. In addition to access to the commons, each lot owner was granted individual use of a field strip measuring one arpent
Arpent
An arpent is a unit of length and a unit of area. It is a pre-metric French unit based on the Roman actus. It is used in Quebec as well as in some areas of the United States that were part of French Louisiana.-Unit of length:...
wide and forty arpents long. Each strip was part of a larger group of fields that were platted at the same time; a total of four such fields were created between 1766 and 1769, and by the 1790s nearly 6,000 acres were under cultivation around St. Louis. In spite of this agriculture, fur trading was the major focus of many residents.
Pierre Gibault
Father Pierre Gibault was a Jesuit missionary and priest in the Northwest Territory in the 18th century, and an American Patriot during the American Revolution....
of Kaskaskia on June 24, 1770. Gibault officiated at the chapel regularly in spite of being under the authority of the bishop of Quebec and being a British subject, and he performed dozens of masses and sixty-four baptisms until 1772. In May 1772, a Capuchin
Order of Friars Minor Capuchin
The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an Order of friars in the Catholic Church, among the chief offshoots of the Franciscans. The worldwide head of the Order, called the Minister General, is currently Father Mauro Jöhri.-Origins :...
priest named Valentine became the first resident priest in St. Louis (although he technically was the chaplain to the Spanish garrison), and through early 1776 he baptized 64 French, 24 blacks, and 19 Indians, and he officiated at 72 funerals and 4 weddings. The estate of former commandant St. Ange contributed funds toward the building of a new church in 1774, but it was delayed by the death of its carpenter until mid-1776. In May 1776, Valentine was replaced by another Capuchin, Father Bernard de Limpach, who became the first pastor of the St. Louis parish, and with this and the completion of the new church building, Catholic religious observance became a customary component of life in St. Louis.
Among the earliest problems confronting the Spanish commanders of St. Louis was the issue of Indian slavery, which was abolished by a decree written by Spanish Governor O'Reilly and published by Piernas in May 1770. However, the ban was openly violated by St. Louisans during the summer of 1770, and Piernas requested guidance from the new Spanish governor, Luis de Unzaga (who had taken office in March 1770 after O'Reilly retired to Havana). The new governor and Piernas interpreted the abolishment by agreeing to halt further purchases of Indian slaves but allowing the retention of current slaves and any children born to them. These Indian slaves generally were replaced by African slaves via manumission, although some remained in bondage until the 1830s when freedom suits
Freedom suits
Freedom suits were legal petitions filed by slaves for freedom in the United States and its territories before the American Civil War, including during the colonial period. Most were filed during the nineteenth century. After the American Revolution, most northern states had abolished slavery, and...
led to final Indian emancipation. In 1772, a census determined the population of the village to be 577, including 444 whites (285 males and 159 females) and 193 African slaves, with no Indian slaves reported due to their technical illegality.
Upon the promotion of Piernas to a new post in New Orleans in 1775, control of St. Louis passed to Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Cruzat, who continued the lax enforcement of Spanish policies common under Piernas. The population of the village increased to nearly 700, and in 1775, St. Louis merchants exported several hundred quintal
Quintal
Quintal may refer to:* Quintal , a unit of mass* Quartal and quintal harmony in music* Quintal, Haute-Savoie, a commune of the Haute-Savoie département in France* Stéphane Quintal, NHL ice hockey player...
s of flour to New Orleans. In 1778, however, Cruzat was removed as commander of St. Louis upon the orders of Spanish Governor Bernardo Galvez
Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez
Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Viscount of Galveston and Count of Gálvez was a Spanish military leader and the general of Spanish forces in New Spain who served as governor of Louisiana and Cuba and as viceroy of New Spain.Gálvez aided the Thirteen Colonies in their quest for independence and led...
, who was responding to British complaints that Cruzat had allowed Spanish agents to violate British territory in Illinois. The same year, Pierre Laclède, founder of St. Louis, died while returning from a trade expedition to New Orleans. Galvez replaced Cruzat with Fernando de Leyba
Fernando de Leyba
Don Fernando de Leyba was a Spanish officer and politician who served as the third governor of Upper Louisiana from 1778 until his death.Little is known of De Leyba's life until his appointment to the position of governor on June 14, 1778...
, who moved the government offices from Laclède's former stone house and headquarters and sold the property to Auguste Chouteau.
St. Louis in the American Revolution
Since the beginning of hostilities between the British and their American subjects, Spanish governors in New Orleans assisted the American rebels with weapons and ammunition. Along with his appointment as the new commander of St. Louis, Fernando de Leyba was instructed to abet any rebel Americans in British territory and recruit Catholics living in British territory to move to St. Louis. Upon his arrival in St. Louis, Leyba invited George Rogers ClarkGeorge Rogers Clark
George Rogers Clark was a soldier from Virginia and the highest ranking American military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the Kentucky militia throughout much of the war...
, an American colonel who was leading the Illinois campaign and had recently captured the town of Kaskaskia, to a two-day banquet and reception in his honor. Leyba also encouraged St. Louis merchants to supply Clark's forces with weapons and provided guarantees of credit for Clark.
By early 1779, the British commander Henry Hamilton
Henry Hamilton
Henry Hamilton was an Irish-born soldier and official of the British Empire. He was captured during the American War of Independence while serving as the Lieutenant Governor at the British post of Fort Detroit.-Early career :...
had retaken the town of Vincennes, and his forces were advancing on Kaskaskia. Hamilton informed Leyba and Galvez that if American forces retreated to Spanish territory, he would pursue them there and attack Spanish forces, likely attacking St. Louis. However, Clark managed to defeat the British forces and capture Hamilton himself in February 1779, averting the threat to the town. After the entrance of Spain on the side of the Americans in June 1779, the British developed a strategy to attack St. Louis and other Spanish settlements along the Mississippi using fur traders and Indians.
The British force departed Prairie du Chien on May 2, 1780 with more than 200 traders and Indians. Prior to their departure, however, an American trader had alerted Leyba in St. Louis as to the plan, giving time to develop defensive measures around the town. Only one of four planned masonry towers was built, near the current intersection of Fourth and Walnut streets, and the rest of the town was surrounded by more than a mile of entrenchments. As a British force of nearly 1,000 approached in early May (augmented along its journey by more Indian forces), more than 150 militia took up positions in the fortifications around St. Louis.
After 1781, the British permanently evacuated the lands east of the Mississippi, leaving the land to the Americans. A lack of effective American government there led many remaining Creole families to emigrate to St. Louis from 1780 to 1783, bringing about a 19% increase in the population to about 900, not including slaves. Among these families was that of Gabriel Cerre and Charles Gratiot, merchants from Kaskaskia and Cahokia. Upon his arrival in St. Louis, Cerre was counted as the wealthiest merchant in the town, owning more than 850 acres of land around St. Louis and 6,000 acres along the Meramec River. Cerre's daughters married into the elite of Creole society, including eldest daughter Marie Anne who married Pierre-Louis Panet
Pierre-Louis Panet
Pierre-Louis Panet was a lawyer, notary, seigneur, judge and political figure in Lower Canada.He was born in Montreal in 1761, the son of Pierre Panet. Panet qualified to practice as a lawyer in 1779 and as a notary in 1780. He practiced as a notary at Montreal from 1781 to 1783 and at Quebec City...
of Montreal in 1781; second daughter Marie Therese who married Auguste Chouteau, co-founder of St. Louis in 1786, and the youngest daughter Julia married Antoine Soulard, a surveyor who added significant property additions at the periphery of St. Louis.
Charles Gratiot
Charles Gratiot, Sr.
Charles Gratiot was a merchant trader in the American Midwest during the American Revolution. He financed George Rogers Clark with $8,000 for his Illinois campaign, which was never reimbursed....
, the second major merchant to relocate to St. Louis at the end of the American Revolution, also added to the wealth of the community. His English and trade skills allowed him to aid the Americans during the war, but in 1781, he relocated to the west bank, where he married Victoire Chouteau, daughter of Laclède and sister to Auguste Chouteau. During the 1790s, he conducted trade with Americans migrating west, and he also operated a mill and distillery on his farm to the west of the village. Eventually through land grants and purchases, Gratiot became one of the largest landowners in the area, with his primary farm stretching west from present-day Kingshighway Boulevard to far beyond the city limits to present-day Big Bend Boulevard, and from the northern edge of present-day Forest Park
Forest Park
-Towns and villages:*Forest Park, Ontario, Canada*Forest Park, Georgia, USA*Forest Park, Illinois, USA*Forest Park, Ohio, Hamilton county, Ohio, USA*Forest Park, Ottawa County, Ohio, USA*Forest Park, Oklahoma, USA...
to Chippewa Avenue on the south. During his lifetime, Gratiot and his wife raised nine children to maturity in status and wealth (especially his son Charles Gratiot
Charles Gratiot
Charles Gratiot, Jr. was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He was the son of Charles Gratiot, Sr., a fur trader in the Illinois country during the American Revolution, and Victoire Chouteau, who was from an important mercantile family. His father became a wealthy merchant during the early years of St....
, a significant engineer and soldier), forming the basis of another group of St. Louis elites. The two merchant families of Gratiot and Cerre intermarried with the Chouteau family to create a society in the 1780s and 1790s that was dominated by French Creoles with marital ties to Spanish government officials, including lieutenant governors Piernas and Cruzat.
Transfer to France and the United States
Florissant, Missouri
Florissant is a second-ring suburb of St. Louis, located in northern St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. The city has a total population of 52,158 in 2010 census.-History:...
, was founded on the south bank of the Missouri about 15 miles northwest of St. Louis and had a population of nearly 300. By 1800, only 43% of the St. Louis district's population (excluding St. Charles district) lived within the village of St. Louis (1,039 of 2,447).
Some of these small farmers and artisans, upon hearing news of the successes of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, began agititating in the late 1790s in support of French ideals. On September 22, 1796, a group of St. Louis artisans led a "noisy celebration" in support of a return of Louisiana to an egalitarian French government. In a show of strength, the Spanish governor sent a fleet of galleys and soldiers with military supplies to reinforce Spanish control of St. Louis.
However, even while the Spanish colonial officials were trying to maintain control of Louisiana, the Spanish government was attempting to transfer the territory to France. The Spanish government secretly returned the unprofitable Louisiana territory to France in October 1800 in the Treaty of San Ildefonso
Third Treaty of San Ildefonso
The Third Treaty of San Ildefonso was a secretly negotiated treaty between France and Spain in which Spain returned the colonial territory of...
. After a promise by French leader Napoleon Bonaparte not to sell Louisiana without giving Spain the right of first refusal
Right of first refusal
Right of first refusal is a contractual right that gives its holder the option to enter a business transaction with the owner of something, according to specified terms, before the owner is entitled to enter into that transaction with a third party...
, the Spanish officially transferred control of Louisiana to France in October 1802. However, Spanish administrators remained in charge of St. Louis throughout the time of French ownership.
Upon the transfer of control, the Spanish administrator in New Orleans (upon Napoleon's orders) revoked the right of deposit for American merchants at New Orleans. This encouraged the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
under President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
to send a team of negotiators to France in early 1803 with the purpose of gaining navigation rights on the Mississippi; however, Napoleon instead sold all of Louisiana, including St. Louis, to the United States on April 30, 1803, as part of the Louisiana Purchase
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America of of France's claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803. The U.S...
. The treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate in November 1803, and the transfer of power from Spain was made official in St. Louis at a ceremony called Three Flags Day
Three Flags Day
Three Flags Day commemorates March 9 and 10, 1804, when Spain officially turned over the Louisiana Territory to France, which in turn ceded the territory to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase.The ceremony in St...
. On March 8, 1804, the flag of Spain
Flag of Spain
The flag of Spain , as it is defined in the Spanish Constitution of 1978, consists of three horizontal stripes: red, yellow and red, the yellow stripe being twice the size of each red stripe...
was lowered at the government buildings in St. Louis and, according to local tradition, the flag of France
Flag of France
The national flag of France is a tricolour featuring three vertical bands coloured royal blue , white, and red...
was raised. On March 10, 1804, the French flag was replaced by the flag of the United States
Flag of the United States
The national flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars alternating with rows...
.