St. Clair and Wayne 331 



"in the most shabby and wretched state," and who 

 had "rioted in abundance and unaccustomed luxury" 

 at the expense of the Creoles, had also maltreated 

 and insulted them ; as for instance they had at times 

 wantonly shot the cattle merely to try their rifles. 

 "Ours was the task of hewing and carting them fire 

 wood to the barracks," continued the petition, com 

 plaining of the way the Virginians had imposed on 

 the submissiveness and docility of the inhabitants, 

 "ours the drudgery of raising vegetables which we 

 did not eat, poultry for their kitchen, cattle for the 

 diversion of their marksmen." 



The petitioners further asked that every man 

 among them should be granted five hundred acres. 

 They explained that formerly they had set no value 

 on the land, occupying themselves chiefly with the 

 Indian trade, and raising only the crops they abso 

 lutely needed for food; but that now they realized 

 the worth of the soil, and inasmuch as they had 

 various titles to it, under lost or forgotten charters 

 from the French kings, they would surrender all 

 the rights these titles conveyed, save only what be 

 longed to the Church of Cahokia, in return for the 

 above named grant of five hundred acres to each 

 individual. 2 



9 State Department MSS., No. 48, "Memorial of the French 

 Inhabitants of Post Vincennes, Kaskaskia, La Prairie du 

 Rocher, Cahokia, and Village of St. Philip to Congress." 

 By Bartholomew Tardiveau, agent. New York, February 

 26, 1788. Tardiveau was a French mercantile adventurer, 

 who had relations with Gardoqui and the Kentucky sepa 

 ratists, and in a petition presented by him it is not easy to 

 discriminate between the views that are really those of the 



