1764.] CREOLES OF THE ILLINOIS. 251 



Cahokia they established missions, and built frail 

 churches from the bark of trees, fit emblems of 

 their own transient and futile labors. Morning and 

 evening, the savage worshippers sang praises to the 

 Virgin, and knelt in supplication before the shrine 

 of St. Joseph.^ 



Soldiers and fur-traders followed where these 

 pioneers of the church had led the way. Forts 

 were built here and there throughout the country, 

 and the cabins of settlers clustered about the mis- 

 sion-houses. The new colonists, emigrants from 

 Canada or disbanded soldiers of French regiments, 

 bore a close resemblance to the settlers of Detroit, 

 or the primitive people of Acadia ; whose simple 

 life poetry has chosen as an appropriate theme, but 

 w^ho, nevertheless, are best contemplated from a 

 distance. The Creole of the Illinois, contented, 

 light-hearted, and thriftless, by no means fulfilled 

 the injunction to increase and multiply ; and the 

 colony languished in spite of the fertile soil. The 

 people labored long enough to gain a bare subsist- 

 ence for each passing day, and spent the rest of 

 their time in dancing and merry-making, smoking, 

 gossiping, and hunting. Their native gayety was 

 irrepressible, and they found means to stimulate it 

 with wine made from the fruit of the wild grape- 

 vines. Thus they passed their days, at peace with 

 themselves, hand and glove with their Indian neigh- 

 bors, and ignorant of all the world beside. Money 

 was scarcely known among them. Skins and furs 



1 For an account of Jesuit labors in the Illinois, see the letters of 

 Father Marest, in Lett. Edif. IV. 



