The Kaskaskia were one of the indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. They were one of about a dozen cognate tribes that made up the Illiniwek Confederation, also called the Illinois Confederation. Their longstanding homeland was in the Great Lakes region. Their first contact with Europeans reportedly occurred near present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 1667 at a Jesuit mission station.[ citation needed ]
In 1673, Jesuit Father Jacques Marquette and French-Canadian explorer Louis Jolliet became the first Europeans known to have descended the Mississippi River. The record of their trip is the earliest, best record of contact between Europeans and the Illinois Indians. Marquette and Jolliet, with five other men, left the mission of St. Ignace at Michilimackinac in two bark canoes on May 17. To reach the Mississippi River, they travelled across Lake Michigan into Green Bay, up the Fox River and down the Wisconsin River. Descending the Mississippi, in June, they met the Peoria and Moingwena bands of Illinois at the Haas/Hagerman Site near the mouth of the Des Moines River in Clark County, northeastern Missouri. They met another Illinois band, the Michigamea, when they reached present-day Arkansas.
They began their return trip from the Michigamea village about July 17, following the Illinois River eastward to Lake Michigan rather than taking the more northern route along the Wisconsin River. Near modern Utica in LaSalle County, Illinois, across from Starved Rock, they met the Kaskaskia at the Grand Village of the Illinois (now a State Historic Site, also known as the Zimmerman site). The land controlled by the allied Illinois groups extended north from modern Arkansas, through Eastern Missouri and most of Illinois, and west into Iowa, where Des Moines was named after the Moingwena. [2]
In 1703, the French established a permanent mission, settlement and fort (Fort Kaskaskia State Historic Site) at Kaskaskia, Illinois, a part of their New France colonization of North America., [3] [4] which was part of the French Illinois Country, later made part of French Louisiana (New France).
French settlers moved in to farm and to exploit the lead mines on the Missouri side of the river. Kaskaskia became the capital of Upper Louisiana, and a larger Fort de Chartres was built in 1718, nearby North close to Prairie du Rocher. In the same year, the French imported African slaves from Saint-Domingue (Santo Domingo) to work in the lead mines. [5] From its beginning, Kaskaskia was a French/Native American settlement, consisting of a few French men and numerous Kaskaskia and other Illinois Indians.
In 1707, the population of the community was estimated at 2,200, the majority of them Illinois Indians who lived somewhat apart. A visitor, writing of Kaskaskia about 1715, said that the village consisted of 400 Illinois men, "very good people," two Jesuit missionaries, and "about twenty French voyageurs who have settled there and married Indian women." [6] Of 21 children whose birth and baptism was recorded in Kaskaskia before 1714, 18 mothers were Indian and 20 fathers were French. The offspring of these mixed marriages could become either French or Indian. Because Indian communities were larger and more complete, they tended to be reared with their mothers and their people and culture. One devout Roman Catholic full-blooded Indian woman disowned her half-breed son for living "among the savage nations." [7] The settlement of Kaskaskia thus had a large population of mixed French and Indigenous ancestry, many of whom worked for fur companies based out of St. Louis, Missouri (a city created later, in 1764, by French traders and settlers who came from New Orleans). [8]
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Male descendants of the French, Indians, and mixed bloods at Kaskaskia became the voyageurs and coureurs des bois who would explore and exploit the Missouri River country. The French wanted to trade with all the prairie tribes, and beyond with the Spanish colony in New Mexico; the Spanish were alarmed at their commercial reach. French goals stimulated the expedition of Claude Charles Du Tisne to establish trade relations with the Plains Indians in 1719. The fate of the Kaskaskia, and the rest of the Illiniwek/Illinois, was irrevocably tied up with that of France. Until their dissolution in France, French Jesuits built missions and ministered to the Kaskaskia. By 1763 and the end of the Seven Years' War in North America (called the French and Indian War in the United States), the Kaskaskia and other Illinois tribes were greatly in decline. Early French explorers had estimated their original population from 6,000 to more than 20,000. By the end of the war, their numbers were a fraction of that. Contemporary historians believe the greatest fatalities during this period were due to new infectious diseases, to which the Native Americans had no immunity.
The causes of decline are many and varied. [9] The Illinois made war with their French allies against the most formidable native nations: to the east, the Iroquois; to the northwest, the Sioux and the Fox; to the south, the Chickasaw and Cherokee; to the west, the Osage Nation. Added to combat losses were the great losses due to epidemics of European diseases. In 1769, a Peoria warrior killed Pontiac, which brought the wrath of the Great Lakes tribes against the Kaskaskia and other Illinois tribes. (Some historians question this legendary retaliation; see the article on Pontiac.) The Ottawa, Sauk, Fox, Miami, Kickapoo and Potawatomi devastated the Illiniwek and occupied their old tribal range along the Illinois River.
In 1766, the British arrived and established a small detachment from Fort de Chartres at Kaskaskia. From 1766 through 1772, this rotating detachment was around 25 men under a junior officer, detached from Fort de Chartres. In May 1772, when the British abandoned Fort de Chartres, the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot, left a small detachment of four officers and 50 men at Kaskaskia as an effort to retain British control over the Illinois Country. Captain Hugh Lord, of the 18th Foot, was the last British commander in Illinois. The detachment of the 18th Foot was ordered to Detroit in May 1776 and never returned to Illinois. Lord's detachment was garrisoned in the former Jesuit compound at Kaskaskia. The post was called Fort Gage only after Fort de Chartres was abandoned in 1772. [10]
On July 4, 1778, during the American Revolutionary War, George Rogers Clark captured the town and Fort Gage. [11]
End April 1824, Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, French hero of the American Revolutionary War, visited Kaskaskia during his grand tour of the United States, just after having visited Saint Louis (Missouri) (Visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to the United States), as a salute to two towns which were part of the former French Louisiana which was acquired by the United States in 1803.
The name 'Kaskaskia' derives from the old Miami-Illinois word for a katydid, phonetically kaaskaaskia. This name later appeared in the modern Peoria and Miami dialects as kaahkaahkia. [12] This is already seen in Gravier's early-18th century Illinois dictionary, where for the word "caskaskia", he gives "cigale. item nation Ilinoise, les Kaskaskias".
The descendants of the Kaskaskia, along with the Wea and Piankeshaw, are enrolled in the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, a federally recognized tribe in Oklahoma. [13]
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The name and term "Kaskaskia" lives on in Illinois:
Kaskaskia is a village in Randolph County, Illinois. Having been inhabited by indigenous peoples, it was settled by France as part of the Illinois Country. It was named for the Kaskaskia people. Its population peaked at about 7,000 in the 18th century, when it was a regional center. During the American Revolutionary War, the town, which by then had become an administrative center for the British Province of Quebec, was taken by the Virginia militia during the Illinois campaign. It was designated as the county seat of Illinois County, Virginia, after which it became part of the Northwest Territory in 1787. Kaskaskia was later named as the capital of the United States' Illinois Territory, created on February 3, 1809. In 1818, when Illinois became the 21st U.S. state, the town briefly served as the state's first capital until 1819, when the capital was moved to more centrally located Vandalia.
The Illinois Confederation, also referred to as the Illiniwek or Illini, were made up of 12 to 13 tribes who lived in the Mississippi River Valley. Eventually member tribes occupied an area reaching from Lake Michicigao (Michigan) to Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. The five main tribes were the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa. The spelling Illinois was derived from the transliteration by French explorers of iliniwe to the orthography of their own language. The tribes are estimated to have had tens of thousands of members, before the advancement of European contact in the 17th century that inhibited their growth and resulted in a marked decline in population.
The Illinois Country — sometimes referred to as Upper Louisiana —was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s in what is now the Midwestern United States. While those names generally referred to the entire Upper Mississippi River watershed, French colonial settlement was concentrated along the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers in what is now the U.S. states of Illinois and Missouri, with outposts on the Wabash River in Indiana. Explored in 1673 from Green Bay to the Arkansas River by the Canadien expedition of Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, the area was claimed by France. It was settled primarily from the Pays d'en Haut in the context of the fur trade, and in the establishment of missions from Canada by French Catholic religious orders. Over time, the fur trade took some French to the far reaches of the Rocky Mountains, especially along the branches of the broad Missouri River valley. The French name, Pays des Ilinois, means "Land of the Illinois [plural]" and is a reference to the Illinois Confederation, a group of related Algonquian native peoples.
The Peoria are a Native American people. They are enrolled in the federally recognized Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma headquartered in Miami, Oklahoma.
Fort de Chartres was a French fortification first built in 1720 on the east bank of the Mississippi River in present-day Illinois. It was used as the administrative center for the province, which was part of New France. Due generally to river floods, the fort was rebuilt twice, the last time in limestone in the 1750s in the era of French colonial control over Louisiana and the Illinois Country.
The Wea were a Miami-Illinois-speaking Native American tribe originally located in western Indiana. Historically, they were described as either being closely related to the Miami Tribe or a sub-tribe of Miami.
The Tamaroa were a Native American people in the central Mississippi River valley of North America, and a member of the Illiniwek or Illinois Confederation of 12 or 13 tribes. The name "Tamaroa" is a derivative of the word tamarowa meaning "cut tail" in Illiniwek and relates to a totemic animal such as bear or wildcat. An Algonquian-speaking group, like the rest of the Illiniwek, they lived on both sides of the Mississippi River in the area of the confluence with the Illinois and Missouri Rivers. Tamaroan culture is presumed to be similar to that of the Kaskaskia, Peoria, and other Illinois tribes.
The American Bottom is the flood plain of the Mississippi River in the Metro-East region of Southern Illinois, extending from Alton, Illinois, south to the Kaskaskia River. It is also sometimes called "American Bottoms". The area is about 175 square miles (450 km2), mostly protected from flooding in the 21st century by a levee and drainage canal system. Immediately across the river from St. Louis, Missouri, are industrial and urban areas, but nearby marshland, swamps, and the Horseshoe Lake are reminders of the Bottoms' riparian nature.
Fort Kaskaskia State Historic Site is a 200-acre (0.8 km²) park near Chester, Illinois, on a blufftop overlooking the Mississippi River. It commemorates the vanished frontier town of Old Kaskaskia and the support it gave to George Rogers Clark in the American Revolution.
The Cahokia Courthouse State Historic Site is a reconstructed French-Canadian structure built about 1740 at what is now 107 Elm Street, Cahokia Heights, Illinois. At various times it has served as a house and as a courthouse. It is currently interpreted to resemble its appearance about 1800 as a frontier courthouse of the Northwest Territory. The courthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 9, 1972.
The Mitchigamea or Michigamea or Michigamie were a tribe in the Illinois Confederation. Not much is known about them and their origin is uncertain. Originally they were said to be from Lake Michigan, perhaps the Chicago area. Mitchie Precinct, Monroe County in Southwestern Illinois takes its name from their transient presence nearby, north of the French Fort de Chartres in the American Bottom along the Mississippi. One of their villages in the American Bottom, inhabited from 1730 until 1752, is one of the region's premier archaeological sites; it is known as the "Kolmer Site".
Jacques Gravier was a French Jesuit missionary in the New World. He founded the Illinois mission in 1696, where he ministered to the several tribes of the territory. He was notable for his compilation of the most extensive dictionary of Kaskaskia Illinois-French among those made by French missionaries. In 1705 he was appointed Superior of the mission.
The Moingona or Moingwena were a historic Miami-Illinois tribe. They may have been close allies of or perhaps part of the Peoria. They were assimilated by that tribe and lost their separate identity about 1700. Today their descendants are enrolled in the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, a federally-recognized tribe.
Claude Charles du Tisné led the first official French expedition to visit the Osage and the Wichita Indians in 1719 in what became known as Kansas in the present-day United States.
The Cahokia were an Algonquian-speaking Native American tribe and member of the Illinois Confederation; their territory was in what is now the Midwestern United States in North America.
The Mission of the Guardian Angel was a 17th-century Jesuit mission in the vicinity of what is now Chicago, Illinois. It was established in 1696 by Father François Pinet, a French Jesuit priest. The mission was abandoned by 1700; its exact location remains unknown.
Le Grand Champ is an alluvial floodplain, also called a bottom, extending along the Mississippi River in Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri.
The Colonial history of Missouri covers the French and Spanish exploration and colonization: 1673–1803, and ends with the American takeover through the Louisiana Purchase
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