[237 



82 



feasted; got drunk ; and retired into ihe wood, to sing his medicine songs. 

 In the mean while, an EngUsh merchant, named Williamson, bribed a 

 Kaskaskia Indian with a barrel of rum, and the promise of a greater re- 

 ward it' he could succeed in killing Pontiac. He was struck with a paka- 

 raagon, (tomahawk,) and his skull fractured, which caused hisdeath. This 

 murder, which roused the vengeance of nil the Indian tribes friendly to 

 Pontiac, brought about the successive wars and fdmost total extermination 

 of the Illinois nation. 



Pontiac was a remarkably well-looking man ; nice in his person, and full 

 of taste in his dress, and in the arrangement of his exterior ornaments. 

 His complexion is said to have approached that of the whites. His origin 

 is still uncertain ; for some have supposed him to belong to the tribe of Ot- 

 towas, others to the Miamis. &c. ; but Col. P. Chouteau, senior, who knew 

 him well, is of opinion ib.at he was a Nipissing. 



At last, on the 17th of July, 176.5, Mr, do. St. Ange de Bellerive sur- 

 rendered the country, and passed over to St. Louis, with his troops and 

 the civil officers. This arrival was a favorable event for the organization 

 of the colony. St. Louis became the capital of Upper Louisiana, under 

 the command of Mr. de St. Ange, who had charge of the execution of 

 iho laws and ordinances by which the French possessions were gov- 

 erned. 



But Louis XV", in 1763, had entered into another treaty, by which he 

 ceded to Spain the rest of his possessions in North America. This treaty, 

 which filled the measure of French losses and humiliations, had been kept 

 secret for a year. The official news of it was only receivea at New Or- 

 leans on the 21st of April, 1764, and rumors of it soon reached Upper 

 Louisiana. Such was the consternation v/ith which it was received by 

 the whole French population, that the grief it occasioned to Governor 

 D'Abadie became the cause of his death, and Aubri, his successor, liad to 

 announce the cession to the people. The serious troubles which, in conse- 

 quence of this cession, were brought on at New Orleans under the Spanish 

 captain general, Don Antonio d'Ulloa, and the tragic events which follo>ved 

 under his successor, the blood-thirsty General Oreiley, kept the administra- 

 tion of Upper Louisiana in the hands of the French for several years. It 

 was not until the llth of August, 1768, that Spanish troops could take a 

 first possession of St. Louis. But, eleven months afterwards, in conse- 

 quence of the events alluded to, the same troops had been compelled to 

 evacuate the country. At last, quiet being restured in Lov/er Louisiana, 

 the Spaniards, in 1770, returned and took definitive possession of St. Louis. 

 Mr. de St. Ange was then an old man. He decided upon remaining in St. 

 Louis, where he died in 1775, at the age of 76. He had long commanded 

 the post of Vincennes, on the Wabash, before he was called to take charge 

 of Fort Chartres; and, being highly respected and beloved by the inhabit- 

 ants, his death was deeply regretted. 



When Mr. Laclede arrived in the country, there were no Indians on 

 the spot where St. Louis now stands, nor in the whole region between 

 the Mississippi and what is now the southern part of the State of Mis- 

 souri. The Illinois Indians never crossed the river; so that the newcolo- 

 nists were never visited but by the Missouri and Osage Indians, and al- 

 ways as friends. The Missourias had become familiar, and had got the 

 habit of spending their summers with the French. They came down 



