| Sumario: | "For anyone looking for their American Revolutionary War patriot in the Midwest region once known as the Spanish Illinois (today's Missouri and surrounding areas west of the Mississippi River), this is the definitive source. In the American colonies, local militiamen formed the core of every town's defense. The same was true for the Spanish province of Louisiana where the Crown did not have the financial means to provide enough regular army soldiers to defend such a vast territory. Local militias of Louisiana were therefore the mainstay of the colony's military force. So that the Spanish government in New Orleans could know the exact size of the force that existed at each settlement or post, militia lists were supposed to be made at the end of every year. For the Spanish Illinois region, very few of these yearly militia rosters have actually survived to our day. After the successful defense of the upper Illinois settlements of St. Louis and Cahokia against the Anglo-inspired attack of May 26, 1780, however, measures were taken to ensure the continued defense of the region. The French inhabitants of St. Louis and Ste. Geneviève on whom the Spanish commandant called for this extraordinary service were accounted for on monthly militia review lists. These records have fortunately survived and exist today, together with the existing rosters, in the collection of Cuba papers in Spain's General Archive of the Indies (AGI) in Seville. This book publishes, for the first time ever, all of these lists - more than seventy rosters and review lists that contain the names of roughly one thousand militiamen who served in St. Louis and Ste. Geneviève between 1779 and 1783. To preserve historical accuracy, the lists have been transcribed here in their original form and language, with key sample translations in English. To facilitate research, the family names have been alphabetically indexed with references to dates and militia companies, making it easy to locate different individuals and discern their role in the defense of the Spanish Illinois settlements throughout the War. We are confident this book, a new research option for genealogists and researchers of upper Mississippi Valley Revolutionary War history, will prove to be a valuable resource for those researching their patriot ancestors and result in the discovery of other unknown patriots of the American Revolution".--From Amazon.com.
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