The Battle of St. Louis, also known as the Attack on St. Louis and the Battle of Fort San Carlos, was fought on May 26, 1780, between British-allied Indians and defenders of the Franco-Spanish village of St. Louis, Louisiana (present-day U.S. state of Missouri) during the American Revolutionary War. The garrison, a motley assortment of regulars and militiamen led by Upper Louisiana's lieutenant governor, Captain Fernando de Leyba, suffered a small number of casualties.
De Leyba fortified St. Louis as best as he could and successfully withstood the attack. On the opposite bank of the Mississippi River, a simultaneous attack on the nearby American village of Cahokia was also repulsed. The retreating British-allied Indians destroyed crops and took captive inhabitants outside the protected area. The British failed to defend their side of the river, effectively ending any attempts to gain control of the Mississippi River during the Revolutionary War.
After Spain entered the American Revolutionary War in 1779, British military planners in London set out to secure the corridor of the Mississippi River against both Spanish and Patriot military movements. Their plans included expeditions from West Florida to take New Orleans and other Spanish targets, including several expeditions to gain control of targets in the Upper Louisiana, such as the small town of St. Louis. The expedition from West Florida never got off the ground because Bernardo de Gálvez, the Governor of Spanish Louisiana, moved rapidly to gain control of Britain's military outposts on the Lower Mississippi and threatened British control over West Florida's principal outposts of Mobile and Pensacola.
Patrick Sinclair, the military governor at Fort Michilimackinac, organized the British expeditions from the north in the present-day Michigan. Beginning in February 1780, he directed Loyalist fur traders to circulate through their territories and recruit interested tribes for an expedition against St. Louis. Sinclair offered the fur traders the opportunity to control the fur trade in the upper parts of Spanish Louisiana as an incentive to participate. Most of the force gathered at Prairie du Chien, where Emanuel Hesse, a former militia captain turned fur trader, took command. The force numbered about two dozen fur traders and an estimated 750 to 1,000 Indians when it left Prairie du Chien on May 2.
Two hundred Sioux warriors led by Wapasha I made up the largest contingency of the force, with additional sizable companies from the Ojibwe, Menominee, Ho-Chunk, and smaller numbers from other nations. Ojibwe chief Matchekewis was given overall command of the native forces. When the force reached Rock Island, they were joined by about 250 men from the Sauk and Meskwaki nations. These warriors were somewhat reluctant to attack St. Louis, but Hesse gave them large gifts to secure their participation in the venture. The diversity within the expedition led to some animosity among the tribes. The Ojibwe and Sioux, in particular, had a history of conflict with each other. However, Wapasha and Matchekewis promoted unity during the expedition.
The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) grew from colonial resistance to British taxation without parliamentary representation — a dispute that radicalized through the Stamp Act (1765), the Townshend Acts (1767), and the Boston Massacre (1770). Fighting began at Lexington and Concord in April 1775; the Continental Congress declared independence on July 4, 1776. The Continental Army under George Washington faced severe shortages of supplies and troops, enduring the brutal winter at Valley Forge (1777–1778) before French alliance and French financing turned the military balance. Major engagements included Bunker Hill (1775), Trenton (1776), Saratoga (1777) — which secured French intervention — and Yorktown (1781), where British General Cornwallis surrendered to Washington. An estimated 25,000 American soldiers died in service, from combat, disease, and captivity. The Treaty of Paris (1783) recognized American independence and ceded British territory east of the Mississippi, though it left unresolved questions about Indigenous land rights and the status of Loyalists.
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