HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
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by President Arthur, Assistant United States Treasurer for Chicago, serving until after Cleveland's first election. His present home (1898), is near Los Angeles, Cal.
BIENVILLE, Jean Baptiste le Moyne, Sieur de, was born at Montreal, Canada, Feb. 23, 1680, and was the French Governor of Louisiana at the time the Illinois country was included in that province. He had several brothers, a number of whom played important parts in the early history of the province. Bienville first visited Louisiana, in company with his brother Iberville, in 1698, their object being to establish a French colony near the mouth of the Mississippi. The first settlement was made at Biloxi, Dec. 6, 1699, and Sanvolle, another brother, was placed in charge. The latter was afterward made Governor of Louisiana, and, at his death (1701), he was succeeded by Bienville, who transferred the seat of government to Mobile. In 1704 he was joined by his brother Chateaugay, who brought seventeen settlers from Canada. Soon afterwards Iberville died, and Bienville was recalled to France in 1707, but was reinstated the following year. Finding the Indians worthless as tillers of the soil, he seriously suggested to the home government the expediency of trading off the copper-colored aborigines for negroes from the West Indies, three Indians to be reckoned as equivalent to two blacks. In 1713 Cadillac was sent out as Governor, Bienville being made Lieutenant-Governor. The two quarreled. Cadillac was superseded by Epinay in 1717, and, in 1718, Law's first expedition arrived (see Company of the West), and brought a Governor's commission for Bienville. The latter soon after founded New Orleans, which became the seat of government for the province (which then included Illinois), in 1723. In January, 1724, he was again summoned to France to answer charges; was removed in disgrace in 1726, but reinstated in 1733 and given the rank of Lieutenant-General. Failing in various expeditions against the Chickasaw Indians, he was again superseded in 1743, returning to France, where he died in 1768.
BIGGS, William, pioneer, Judge and legislator, was born in Maryland in 1753, enlisted in the Revolutionary army, and served as an officer under Colonel George Rogers Clark in the expedit
Dundee Area History
