AN HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 17 
immediate valley of the Mississippi, including New Orleans, 
Natchez, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Ft. Chartres, and the trading 
post of Prairie du Chien. 
JOINT SPANISH AND ENGLISH OCCUPATION OF THE 
MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. =f 
We now come to note the era of Spanish and English 
occupation of the Mississippi Valley, continuing in the lat- 
ter only to the close of the revolutionary war in 1783, while 
Spanish rule extended to the date of the re-transference 
of Louisiana from Spain to France, and its purchase soon 
after by the United States, in 1803. 
With the accession of British authority and the introduc- 
tion of an English-speaking people, soon to merge into the 
great American Republic, we are put in possession of au- 
thentic narratives and descriptions of the country, by which 
the thread of historical events may be most conveniently 
traced. It must be admitted that previous accounts by 
French writers are, as a general rule, tinctured by their ex- 
elusive national or political views, and indicate not unfre- 
quently a disposition to conceal the true state of things, and 
thus keep from other rival nationalities an exact knowledge 
of the actual resources and capabilities of the country they 
aim to monopolize. Hence some of the early French maps 
are purposely inexact, and many of the published narratives 
were nothing but wholesale fictions. Furthermore, it is not 
to be wondered at that the French, in surrendering the 
fruits of their dearly earned discoveries to the possession 
and control of their old and hereditary enemies, should de- 
cline to communicate the knowledge thus obtained, or even 
hs. Such at least are the un- 
to mislead by positive untrut 
contradicted statements of cotemporary English writers and 
travelers. 
7 
