Defender of Saint Louis
Francois Valle first made his mark in the region as founder of French Colonial
Valles Mines after arriving from Quebec in 1748. But 32 years later he made history a
second time by helping his neighbor to the North, a vulnerable Spanish settlement
named...Saint Louis.
"In his early 70's in 1780 and commandante of Ste. Genevieve, he sent his two sons and
all the Ste. Genevieve militia he could spare to the Spanish settlement at St. Louis in May 1780 to defend
against the coming British-Indians attack.
" [With the attack on its way] St. Louis had still not been fortified.
"In two weeks the garrison of 350 defenders withstood 1000 attackers. May 26th, outnumbered
3 to 1, the garrison still prevailed after a desperate struggle...
It does not seem excessive to claim that the men from Ste. Genevieve added the weight that tipped the
scale of battle in favor of the defenders...
...by royal decree on April 1, 1782 King Carlos III of Spain conferred upon Francois I the rank of
lieutenant in the regular Spanish army. Francois Valle, French Canadian habitant thus became a Spanish don...
"...At the same time that the Franco-Spanish garrison repelled the Anglo-Indian attack on St Louis,
Colonel John Montgomery and General George Rogers Clark fended off a secondary British thrust at
Cahokia across the Mississippi. These British setbacks in the western theater of action are a
little-known part of the history of the American Revolution. Nonetheless, they prevented Great
Britain from seizing control of the lucrative fur trade of the lower Mississippi River,....
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