aid of these Indians: "They were formerly brave and
warlike, but are degenerated into a drunken and debauched tribe, and so
indolent, as scarcely to procure a sufficiency of Skins and Furrs to
barter for clothing," and a pastoral letter of August 7, 1767, from the
Bishop of Quebec to the inhabitants of Kaskaskia shows the character of
the French. The French are told that if they will not acknowledge the
authority of the vicar-general--Father Meurin, pastor of Cahokia--cease to
marry without the intervention of the priest, and cease to absent
themselves from church services, they will be abandoned by the bishop as
unworthy of his care.(8) Two years earlier, George Croghan had visited
Vincennes, of which he wrote: "I found a village of about eighty or ninety
French families settled on the east side of this river [Wabash], being one
of the finest situations that can be found.... The French inhabitants,
hereabouts, are an idle, lazy people, a parcel of renegadoes from Canada,
and are much worse than the Indians."(9) Although slave-holders, a large
proportion of the French were almost abjectly poor. Illiteracy was very
common as is shown by the large proportion who signed legal documents by
their marks.(10) The people had been accustomed to a paternal rule and had
not become acquainted with English methods during the few years of British
rule. Such deeds as were given during the French period were usually
written upon scraps of paper, described the location of the land deeded
either inaccurately or not at all, and were frequently lost.(11) Land
holdings were in long narrow strips along the rivers.(12)

The country was physically in a state of almost primeval simplicity. The
chief highways were the winding rivers, although roads, likewise winding,
connected the various settlements. These roads were impassable in times of
much rain. All settlements were near the water, living on a prairie being
regarded as impossible and living far from a river as at least
impracticable.(13) The difficulties of George Rogers Clark in finding his
way, overland, from the Ohio River to Kaskaskia and Vincennes on his awful
winter march, are such as must manifestly have confronted anyone who
wished to go over the same routes at the same season of the year.

Wild animals were abundant. A quarter of a century after the Revolution,
two hunters killed twenty-five deer before nine in the morning near the
Illinois settlements.(14) In 1787, the country bet