Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/209

 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 149 ordinarily decided questions without luueh delay. The trial of eases before command- ants proceeded informally, but while there was opportunity offered lor appeal, sueli ap- peal was rarelj' prosecuted, and if prosecuted at all it usuall.y did not go further than the Lieutenant Governor at St. Louis. This sys- tem of Spanish Law operated to produce great celerity of judicial action. For this system there was substituted the system of the English Common Law. That system pro- vides for trial by jury, and it provides for the hampering of trials by the use of technical- ities, and to the people of the territory ac- customed to the celerity of Spani.sh justice the long delays and the great expense of the American system of courts came with an un- pleasant shock. Another thing which cau.sed dissatisfaction among the settlers in Upper Louisiana was t lie fact that the territory was not erected into a separate government but was joined to Indi- ana. The settlers felt that they were suffi- ciently numerous and sufficiently intelligent to be a distinct territory of the United States, and they held it a grievance that they were not so treated. A fourth grievance was the proposed settle- ment of the eastern Indians in Louisiana. One of the provisions of the Act of Congress for the government of the territory was that the land of the Indians then resident east of the Mississippi should be purchased from them and they should be settled in Louisiana. This provision gave great offence to the peo- ple of the territory. They had had sufficient experience with Indian population to cause them to dread the coming of any other Indian tribes. • This Indian question really settled itself in a very .short time. The Government of the United States did not make any formal dec- laration as to its intentions, but the fad that it did purchase from the Sacs and Foxes the territory which they inhabited just north of the Alissouri river and remove thorn further west seemed an evidence that it was not the intention of (he United States to thrust the eastern Indians into that part of Louisiana inhabited by white people. Although this particuhir complaint was thus disposed of, the others still remained, and on September 29th, 1804, there was held a meet- ing in the city of St. Louis as we have seen, which ilri!w up a petition or memorial to the (ioveriiiiicnl of |li(. United States on these questions. The memorial set out at length the conditions that existed in the territory and called attention to all of the grievances which we have mentioned. The signers, fif- teen in number, who declared themselves to be the representatives of the entire population of I'ljper Louisiana, requested that the act which liatl been passed providing for the govern- ment of the territory should be repealed. They fiirtlier asked that ITpper Louisiana be ei-eeted into a separate and distinct ti-rritory with a government of its own. The territories of the United States, at this time, were divided into three distinct grades, first, second and third, the lowest grade of the territory. Tho.se having the least rights were those of the first grade. This petition to the Congress asked that Upper Louisiana should lie made into a territory of the second grade. The removal of the Indians was also objected to as well as the action with regard as to the Spanish land grants made subsei|uent to 1802. The petitioners further asked that their right to own slaves should be expres.sly recognized. This act had forbidden the inhabitants of the territory of Orleans, as Lower Louisiana was called, from importing slaves. Nothing had been said in the act. however, with regard to