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192 In late 1777, Pierre Laclède undertook preparations for a trip to New Orleans, a journey that proved his last. During his final months in St. Louis, the village that he founded saw moments of celebration amidst a season of suffering. In November, around the time of Laclède’s forty-eighth birthday, news of a distant Spanish victory was officially commemorated, with gunfire salutes, illuminations of neighborhoods, and the singing of the Te Deum.1 Locally, there was bad news in the form of widespread sickness. That fall, some sort of infectious disease swept through the settlement, and doctors were unable to cure it. The fever spread to Indian peoples in the area as well. Unable to work for a time himself, Lieutenant Goveror Cruzat sent a militia officer down to the capital in hopes of securing his health, declaring that the man could not recover in St. Louis.2 Whether Laclède contracted the ailment is unknown, but the steps he took in December, before making his last voyage, make one wonder if he had been feeling unwell or had some intimations of mortality. Before six months had elapsed, Laclède was gone, and St. Louis was a different place. His death was accompanied by other changes affecting the life of the village, in particular, the onset of a period of conflict and eventually war. The American Revolutionary War, raging since the bloodshed in New England in the spring of 1775, finally reached the Mississippi in 1778, and hostilities among European powers ultimately involved St. Louisans in the Anglo-American quarrel. Chapter 7 A Village in Crisis CONFLICT AND VIOLENCE ON THE BRINK OF WAR 1. Cruzat to Gálvez, November 29, 1777, AGI-PC 1-226, MHMA microfilm; the celebrations marked the victory of the Spanish at the island of Santa Catalina de los Portugueses. 2. Cruzat to Gálvez, October 18, 1777, AGI-PC 1-209, MHMA microfilm; Cruzat to Gálvez, October 18, 1777, AGI-PC 1-208. c o n f l i c t a n d V i o l e n c e o n t h e B r i n k o f Wa r / 1 9 3 For villagers, the disruption caused by the disappearance of one longstanding source of local authority and influence—Laclède—and the arrival of another—Spanish lieutenant governor Fernando de Leyba—and the proximity of a third—the Americans—contributed to a climate of conflict . Repeatedly, villagers turned on each other in the streets and courts, bringing verbal and physical violence to center stage. Squabbles over trade poisoned relationships between merchants and the new lieuteant governor, and many in the village felt besieged by neighbors and forces beyond their control. As the decade drew to a close, St. Louis was a community on the brink of war, preoccupied by crises within and haunted by the specter of assault from without. d On December 31, 1777, taking quill in hand, Laclède sat down and composed a letter full of instructions, regret, and self-recrimination. Writing to Auguste Chouteau about his forthcoming trip to New Orleans, Laclède explained his business affairs in full. Although he had gone on similar voyages before, this time Laclède expressed his wishes as though he expected never to return to St. Louis. He informed Chouteau that he had left a number of business papers with Madame Chouteau, including the records of the partnership between him and Auguste. Laclède asked the younger man to collect any debts due to them and to act on other matters, if necessary. “If, by the will of God, I die on this voyage,” he wrote, “will you have the good will and the kindness to render me this service?” The service Laclède anticipated was the payment of various sums he owed to numerous creditors. And deep in debt he certainly was. If he died on his journey, he wanted Auguste to take his letter of instructions to the ranking official and to give copies of it to his former business partner, Maxent, still very much his creditor, in New Orleans. Confessing his worries to Auguste, who had been his companion, confidant, and business partner for many years, Laclède expressed great regret. “Goodbye, my dear sir,” he wrote. “I desire to see you again, and to be able myself to settle my affairs, because it is very hard and painful as I see, to have to die in...

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