Background
Giuseppe Maria Francesco Vigo was born on December 3, 1747, in Mondovi, Piedmont, now a part of Italy, the son of Matheo and Maria Magdalena (Iugalibus) Vigo.
Giuseppe Maria Francesco Vigo was born on December 3, 1747, in Mondovi, Piedmont, now a part of Italy, the son of Matheo and Maria Magdalena (Iugalibus) Vigo.
While a youthful member of a Spanish regiment, Vigo was sent to New Orleans and there became interested in the fur trade. He soon received his discharge, became a very successful trader, and gained at the same time great influence with the French settlers and with the Indians. In 1772, he had reached out as far as the new post at St. Louis, where he established his headquarters and ultimately formed a secret partnership with Fernando de Leyba, the Spanish lieutenant governor at St. Louis.
When George Rogers Clark made an expedition, on behalf of Virginia, for the protection of the early American settlers in the northwest country, Vigo became interested in the American cause. Twice he journeyed to Kaskaskia from St. Louis to give assistance to Clark. The last time, on January 29, 1779, was after his return from Vincennes, where he had gone at the instance of Clark to aid the American commandant. Imprisoned by the British, he was later released as a Spanish citizen, and he very promptly carried information and financial aid to Clark.
There at Kaskaskia was inaugurated that memorable campaign which ended the British influence in the northwest territory and fixed the claims of the Americans to the northwest country. Clark was sadly in need of assistance, having only Virginia colonial money that was of no value with the French inhabitants. Francis Vigo, as he was usually called in America, threw his fortune into the balance and rendered assistance so valuable that he shares with Clark the responsibility for this conquest. When Virginia later ceded all this territory to the confederation of American states, she made the condition that the United States should assume and pay all expenses and indebtedness incurred by her in maintaining defense of the same; but Vigo was not repaid in his lifetime.
He gave freely of his time, influence, and fortune to the American cause, but he spent his declining years in comparative want. When an old man he sold his family silver to buy food. Nearly one hundred years passed before the federal Supreme Court ordered his claims to be paid, and his heirs received about $50, 000. Vigo removed from St. Louis to Vincennes before 1783 and soon became a naturalized citizen of the United States. After the Revolution he rendered conspicuous service, both civil and military. He was executor in the will of Governor De Leyba, dated at St. Louis on June 10, 1780.
Vigo lived during his last years on a farm near Vincennes, but spent much of his time at the home of his old friend William Henry Harrison. He died without receiving the last rites of the Church and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery.
Francis Vigo was aided the American forces during the Revolutionary War and helped found a public university in Vincennes, Indiana, USA. In the city of Vincennes, where he died and was buried, a street bears his name. There are a county and township in Indiana named for him, and great tribute was paid to him at the dedication of the memorial to George Rogers Clark. There is a statue to Francis Vigo on the waterfront of George Rogers Clark National Historical Park that is located in Vincennes, Indiana.
For many years, Vigo was a practising member of the Roman Catholic Church but in his later days he fell away from that faith.
Sometime before 1783, Vigo married Elizabeth Shannon, the daughter of Clark's quartermaster. She died on March 20, 1818, leaving no descendants.
