II. ARKANSAS POST AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

C. Captain Colbert Intervenes

3. Captain Colbert Strikes

a) The Spring of 1782 Brings Heavy Traffic on the Mississippi

Commandant de Villiers, in the late winter of 1782, again sent his wife to New Orleans. She may have traveled in the same boat with the six prisoners and their guards. Fearing trouble on the river and reminded that his wife had been stranded at Natchez at the time of the revolt, the captain sent with her a letter, asking that Jean Dean, a famed Arkansas riverman, be ordered to escort her on her return upstream.

With Governor-General Gálvez absent from the province and engaged in military operations, Estevan Miró was acting-governor. Acknowledging de Villiers’ letter, he promised to issue the necessary order and to direct that boats enroute up the Mississippi travel in convoys.[41]

Miró’s directive was ignored. Of the six boats departing New Orleans upward bound in late winter and early spring of 1782, several may have left together. But by the time they reached Natchez, they were widely separated. First to pass Natchez, doing so about April 5, was the large bateau owned by Silbestre Labadie, a St. Louis merchant. The craft was loaded with presents for the Indians, powder, and much other merchandise, including numerous casks of rum, 4,900 pesos for the subsistence of the troops garrisoning the Ilinueses, and $1,500 in private funds. Passengers in the bateau’s deckhouse were
27-year-old Doña Anicanora Ramas, wife of Lt. Col. Francisco Cruzat, the St. Louis commandant, her four small sons, and her slaves.

Labadie’s vessel had sailed from New Orleans on February 22, 1781. About 15 leagues above New Orleans, on the Acadian Coast, he fell in with Eugenio Albarez’s boat bound downstream from St. Louis. Albarez called that his voyage had been uneventful, except that he had been closely watched as he passed the Chickasaw Bluffs by suspicious-looking individuals.

Labadie continued up the Mississippi to Natchez, where he was told by Commandant Carlos de Grand-Pr that several days before a score of men had fled the area and had taken refuge at Chickasaw Bluffs, “but they could not do him any harm.”[42]

Next to pass was the bateau, owned by Eugene Pourré a captain in the St. Louis militia. Pourré said goodbye to Natchez about April 14. Two boats, traveling together, came next. One of these vessels was Albarez’s returning to St. Louis, and the other belonged to Francois Valle, an elderly militia captain from Ste. Geneviève. Probably aboard the latter craft were Vallé’s daughter, Marie-Louise, and her husband, Lt. Louis de Villars.

Captain Jacobo Dubreuil reached Natchez on May 11, bound upriver from New Orleans to St. Louis with a shipment of government stores. He did not know that Madame de Villiers, who was to rendezvous with him here, had been detained at Pointe Coupeé.

Madame de Villiers had left New Orleans in mid-April, expecting to reach Natchez in the customary 4 weeks. She had stopped at a plantation 1 mile below the post at Pointe Coupeé and had sent a messenger to request her visa to continue upstream. Commandant Nicolas Delassize refused her a visa, and threatened to confiscate her boat and cargo unless she satisfied “her husband’s creditors or compromised his debts.”

As a governmental official, de Villiers was not liable to suit except before the governor. Madame de Villiers accordingly appealed to Acting-Governor Miró. Valuable time was lost in communicating, and it was April 17 before Colonel Miró ordered Commandant Delassize to let her boat and cargo proceed. Because of this delay, she missed her Natchez rendezvous. Captain Dubreuil, having already waited too long, had already cast off for the Ilinueses.

Madame de Villiers and her boat were compelled to continue on to Arkansas Post without an escort. Upon her arrival at the post, she discovered that in her absence her husband had been stricken with a possibly fatal illness. In anticipation of death, he had made his will on April 14.[43]

b) The Attack on Pourré’s Bateau

The first boat attacked was Captain Pourré’s bateau, which had left Natchez in mid-April. On the 19th, about 20 miles above the mouth of the Yazoo, the bateau was intercepted by John Turner and 14 of the Natchez fugitives. Pourré and his crew were disarmed, and their weapons placed in a canoe manned by four men. Turner and nine companions took charge of the bateau and the prisoners.

Four hours later, Pourré and his crew caught the rebels napping. Turning upon them, they pitched them into the Mississippi. Then, snatching up the oars, they bashed in the heads of six Anglo-Saxons and two blacks as they floundered. Turner and a black succeeded in reaching the canoe, where their companions pulled them out of the river. Having been bested in this deadly struggle by the rivermen, Turner and his five surviving men beat a precipitate retreat.

Pourré returned to Natchez, where he fell in with Albarez’s and Vallé’s boats. Before resuming the run up the Mississippi, Pourré informed Captain Grand-Pré that, before they had vanquished the pirates, John Turner had boasted that his friends intended to intercept Madame Cruzat and Labadie’s bateau farther up the Mississippi. Grand-Pré dispatched two bands of Indians to “capture or kill these pirates, ‘since humanity and clemency do not engender in them the slightest emotion,’” and Pourré started back up the Mississippi, accompanied by Albarez’s and Vallé’s boats.[44]