II. ARKANSAS POST AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

D. Captain Colbert Raids Arkansas Post

3. Arkansas Post Prepares for an Attack

c) The Situation Gets Worse

On February 21, 1783, Baptiste Pinguet, one of Labadie’s boatmen, reached Fort Carlos III, having escaped 6 days before from the brigands. He had been accompanied by Baptiste la Framboise, who had remained on their boat at the mouth of the river.

At the time of their escape, Pinguet told Captain Dubreuil, the pirates were encamped 3 leagues above the mouth of Wolf River, and they had boasted of plans to capture the supply boats en route from New Orleans to St. Louis. When he escaped, they numbered about 30 but they expected to be reinforced by 100 men from the Ohio River led by a Captain George. In addition, they would be joined by about 200 Chickasaw warriors led by William Colbert.

Besides discussing the capture of the supply boats, the pirates had talked of plans to come and take Arkansas Post.

When he relayed this information to Acting-Governor Miró, Commandant Dubretil reported that 2 weeks before he had granted an American, Suiger, a passport to move to Natchez with his family. Before doing so, however, Dubreuil had investigated Suiger’s background since his arrival in the village to assure himself that he was an honorable man.

Suiger, however, hoodwinked the Spaniards. Instead of going downriver, he slipped off and joined Captain Colbert’s partisans.

Dubreuil, satisfied that Suiger knew that most of the hunters were absent, creating a serious detriment to the defense of the fort, turned a working party out to erect a curtain on the river front where the caving bank had toppled a section of the stockade.

In reporting this to Acting-Governor Miró, Captain Dubreuil observed: “I hope that it shall be the shelter from the insults of a rabble without discipline . . . and that the expense will merit your approval.”[99]

d) Chief Angaska Leaves on Another Patrol

To secure additional information on the activities of Colbert’s band, and to insure a successful passage of the point of danger by the spring convoy, Captain Dubreuil on March 1 sent Chief Angaska with 23 of his Quapaw warriors up the Mississippi to reconnoiter toward Chickasaw Bluffs. They were accompanied by 11 white hunters. They were to look for the pirates’ camp and determine their number. If the pirates had not been reinforced, they were to attack and destroy them.[100]

Captain Dubreuil would have sent more volunteers with the redmen, but the food situation, because of the previous year’s poor harvest, was critical at the post. “The whites and the Indians” had been “obliged to eat roots from the mountains.” His troops were almost out of corn.

Late in March good news came with a message from Colonel Cruzat that a boat was about to cast off from the Ilinueses with food supplies for Arkansas Post.[101]