90 NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST. 



influence superadded, as the possession of their formidable 

 fire arms, mostly unknown to the natives, gave them, they 

 were enabled to conciliate the untamed children of the forest 

 and prairie, and to avoid many encounters Avhich a more rude 

 and inconsiderate treatment of the savages would doubtless 

 have provoked. 



In 1720, a colony of Germans made a settlement on the 

 banks of the river, a few miles above New Orleans. They 

 were quite numerous, amounting to 1500. In 1723, some 

 Capuchin, and, in two years after, some Jesuit missionaries, 

 settled in the country. For nearly a century following this 

 time, the country w^as peopled with very few inhabitants, 

 and the events that occurred were few ; and saving the trea- 

 ties by which the political relations of the country were 

 changed, and the dominion successively transferred from 

 France to Spain and England, and afterwards to the United 

 States, are of little interest. In this period, however, that 

 is, in fifty years succeeding the building of Fort Crevecoeur, 

 and the first establishment of the French in that quarter, 

 several settlements were made on the American bottom, a 

 few miles below the mouth of the Illinois. These were at 

 Kaskaskia, Kahokia, and Prairie du Rocher, a few miles 

 north of the others. A settlement was also made at Vincen- 

 nes, on the Wabash, originally called St. Vincent's ; and 

 several points on the Missisippi were visited by them, as the 

 river Des Moines, Prairie du Chien, Prairie Pomme de 

 Terre, Marais d'Osier (Willow Swamp), now corrupted into 

 Meredosia Swamp, and other places. 



In 1729 there was a conspiracy of the Natches Indians 

 against the French residing at Fort Natches, which, by the 

 incredulity, blindness and obstinacy of the commander, Che- 

 par, who had full notice of the conspiracy, which his rapacity 

 and misrule had caused, resulted in the massacre of 2000 



