Taking Cahokia

This scene of Helm talking with the French and Indians after arriving at Cahokia is taken from one of the seven murals by Ezra Winter installed in December 1934 at the George Rogers Clark Memorial in Vincennes.

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Shortly after taking Kaskaskia, Clark sent Captain Bowman and a small force of Virginia Volunteers and some of the Kaskaskia militia to take over the nearby village of Cahokia (near present day St. Louis). Upon arriving on July 6, Bowman, by Clark’s orders, spoke to the inhabitants, and informed them that “they were at liberty to become free Americans, as their friends at Kaskaskia had, or (they) that did not choose it might (go) out of the country....” The Kaskaskia militia helped to win the support of their fellow Frenchmen, and Clark had yet again taken another British post.