II. ARKANSAS POST AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

D. Captain Colbert Raids Arkansas Post

3. Arkansas Post Prepares for an Attack

a) Colonel Miró Seeks to Calm Dubreuil’s Fears

On January 11 Boyer, a hunter, arrived at the post with alarming news. On the Mississippi, near La Fourche, he had come upon a camp site. From the signs he estimated the campers at between 60 and 80 British. He also saw signs of Indians, apparently on their way to the Illinois Country.

Dubreuil concluded that the 25 brigands who had recently attacked Benito Vásquez’s boat had belonged to this force. This information was forwarded to Acting-Governor Miró and Colonel Cruzat, to enable them to take precautions to guard shipping on the river. When spring supplies were sent upriver from New Orleans to St. Louis, they went up in a convoy of heavily armed bateaux manned by 300 men.[94]

In an effort to learn the whereabouts and intentions of the force reported by Boyer, Commandant Dubreuil sent Chief Angaska with 20 of his Quapaws to scout toward the Mississippi. The other Quapaw chiefs, in whom he had little confidence, had “gone off to hunt on lands farther away.” If Angaska leaned anything that merited Colonel Miró’s attention, Dubreuil would send a pirogue racing downstream to alert him of the enemy’s plans.[95]

Dubreuil’s message of January 11 reached New Orleans in 4 weeks. When he replied on February 5, Acting-Governor Miró sought to calm his subordinate’s fears. He observed that he had “more than sufficient reasons to believe that all those alarms are false since the Chicachas remain quiet, and those who attacked Don Benito Vasquez scarcely” numbered 15. Captain Dubreuil would not dispatch any more patrols, such as Angaska’s, unless the foe was threatening Arkansas Post.

To protect the convoy currently en route to the Ilinueses, Dubreuil was to employ the Quapaw chiefs and 40 to 50 of their warriors.[96]

Miró on the same date, vetoed Lieutenant de Villars’s request that he be allowed to remain at Arkansas Post. He could see no reason for two officers to be present at a post with no larger a garrison than that at Fort Carlos III. De Villars would resume his journey to the Ilinueses, interrupted 8 months before by his detail as temporary replacement for Commandant de Villiers.[97]

b) Chief Angaska Returns from Patrol

Chief Angaska and his warriors returned to Arkansas Post in mid-February. Calling on Captain Dubreuil, Angaska reported that they had seen no signs of intruders. On the Mississippi they had sighted two pirogues bound downstream from the Ilinueses. The boatmen had told Angaska that “they had scattered the rebellious ones, and that there was nothing to fear on the Mississippi.”

He had also learned that the American hunters from the post operating on White River had fled the area, making off with horses belonging to a number of French hunters and absconding on their creditors at the post. This led Dubreuil to suspect that they might be in league with Colbert and his partisans.[98]