II. ARKANSAS POST AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

C. Captain Colbert Intervenes

2. Arkansas Post Braces for an Attack

a) Hard Times on the Arkansas

Arkansas Post was as yet unaffected by the Natchez revolt and its repercussions. The vagaries of nature, however, plagued residents of the post. The 6 years beginning in 1780 were a period of climatic extremes in the Mississippi Valley. There was a drought in the summer of 1780, which parched the cornfields around Arkansas Post and Natchez and drastically reduced the harvests in the Ilinueses, the Illinois Country, and around Vincennes. During the winters there were heavy snows, with the spring runoffs accompanied by heavy rains. These caused a succession of June floods on the lower Mississippi.

These floods did not inundate Arkansas Post, because in 1779 Commandant de Villiers had relocated the fortified post on high ground, at the edge of Grand Prairie, 36 miles above the mouth of the Arkansas.[37]

With harvests drastically reduced, the garrison and habitants were dependent on imports for their grain. On June 3, 1781, Captain de Villiers had at the post only enough grain to ration his troops for another 2 weeks.[38]

On July 5 a pirogue loaded with grain reached Arkansas Post from St. Louis. Its arrival was very timely, because the garrison was down to 3 days’ rations. The habitants had been out of food for some time, and Commandant de Villiers had “had to help them all.”

Later in the day de Villiers was vexed by the return of the couriers he had dispatched on June 22 to the Illinois Country. To insure that his next attempt to reopen communications would succeed, de Villiers on July 7 sent two Quapaws and two Kaskaskias, the latter having arrived in the food pirogue, on the same mission. The Kaskaskias had assured the commandant that they could make the return trip to the Illinois Country overland in 15 days.

b) The Spanish Erect a Stockade

Four Americans had arrived at Arkansas Post on July 2, accompanied by the son of the post interpreter. The latter, along with his father, had been captured by the British and held prisoner at Natchez. The Americans had formerly resided at the post. The group turned over to Captain de Villiers several letters. When he opened them, he was disturbed to see that one had been written by “Stilman who knows particularly well all the environs of this post.” Stilman and several confederates had “fled to the Chickasaws” and had “sworn on oath between themselves to spare nothing to capture” Arkansas Post.

Next day all the inhabitants, having learned of the contents of the letters, called on Commandant de Villiers and told him “it would be well to build a fort capable of holding their families in case of a raid by the Chickasaws joined to the bandits living with them.” They volunteered to fell and haul logs for a palisade.

De Villiers took advantage of their gesture, as he deemed it a good opportunity “to construct a fort in this post which will cost the King little and will last long.”

Assisted by the habitants, the garrison turned to and erected a stockade of “red oak stakes thirteen feet high, with diameters of 10 to 15 or 16 inches, split in two and reinforced inside by similar stakes to a height of six feet and a banquette of two feet.”

The stockade enclosed all “necessary places, including a house 45 feet long and 15 feet wide, and a storehouse, both serving to lodge my troops, and around several smaller buildings.” These structures had been erected by the commandant and his troops, at de Villiers’ expense, following their arrival at the post. The embrasures for the cannons and swivel guns were “covered with sliding panels” which were “bullet proof.”

If no difficulties developed and his health did not fail, de Villiers wrote Governor Gálvez on July 11, 1781, that before another 12 days passed, “the King will have here a solid post capable of resisting anything which may come to attack it without cannon.” He had refrained from construction of a ditch fronting the stockade, which he believed necessary, “for fear of increasing the expense.” To illustrate his financial plight, he informed Governor Gálvez that Pedro Piernas had refused to honor his voucher for 40 piastres for hire of a pirogue.