II. ARKANSAS POST AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

C. Captain Colbert Intervenes

2. Arkansas Post Braces for an Attack

c) De Villiers Reinforces His Garrison

The addition of several hunters gave Commandant de Villiers a force of about 70, but his “principal guard” consisted of his Indian scouts watching the Grand Prairie toward White River. Since his last report, he had abandoned his outpost on the Mississippi, because it was exposed. Until doing so, he had stopped every boat descending the Mississippi from the Illinois Country.

De Villiers’ plan to send several Quapaws to confer with the Chickasaws had been dropped following a conference with their principal chief, Angaska. The chief had cautioned that “to be sending people so often to that nation” was a confession of
weakness.

Captain de Villiers was “much satisfied” with his soldiers. Despite the heat and humidity, both noncommissioned officers and privates worked long hours without complaint. “Their pay,” de Villiers protested to Governor Gálvez “is not sufficient for their food and still less for their upkeep.” He was sending back to the Louisiana Regiment a soldier of the 2d Company, Manuel Matu, who was suffering from “a fistula incurable in this country.”[39]

d) Fifth Column Activities at Arkansas Post

In the Spanish army, as in all armed forces, desertion was a serious crime, punishable in time of peace by imprisonment and in war by death. But with Spain at war with Great Britain, Louisiana authorities welcomed British and Hessian deserters from Forts Bute and Charlotte and other posts. By the spring of 1781, 90 Hessian deserters had been enlisted in the Regiment of Louisiana. Some of these men were probably billeted to Arkansas Post.

Their presence may have caused Commandant de Villiers misgivings at the time of the Natchez uprising. More serious were his fears that British subjects who had married into the Chickasaw Nation might lead it against Arkansas Post.

A more immediate problem, however, were the activities of William Johnston and Edward Cockrane. These men, who had been licensed to hunt on the Arkansas, conspired with several other “Americans” and two of de Villiers’ H Faust and John Frederick Opendal. They proposed to seize Fort Carlos III and blockade the Mississippi. They talked too much, and their plans were leaked to Menoy, a voyageur bourgeois who warned Captain de Villiers of the plot. De Villiers had the six arrested. Testimony was taken, and at the end of February 1782, the six prisoners were sent to New Orleans, along with guards and witnesses. There they were tried before a military court. The case against the two “Americans” was dropped, while Johnston, Cockrane, and the two soldiers, who had confessed their guilt to de Villiers, were sentenced to death. The sentences, after being reviewed and approved, were carried out.[40]