The French suffered their final military defeat in North America in 1760, and the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1763, brought nearly all of La Nouvelle France—including the Illinois Country—under British control. As British troops gradually moved in to take over French forts, they also wanted to make it possible for British traders to flourish there. However, this proved difficult. French and French-Canadian traders had created trade and kin relationships with the Native inhabitants of the region, and the British soldiers and businessmen were not able to force their way into these commercial networks.
The French-speaking people of villages such as Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and the village near Fort de Chartres were not pleased to be subject to British rule, and many of them—though not all—decided to seek what they saw as better living conditions on the west side of the Mississippi River, which was a Spanish colony as of the end of 1763. Those who remained in the Pays des Illinois, like those who chose to move, continued to live in the French manner, speaking French and retaining their French and French-Canadian cultural traditions, distinct from the British and American cultures that took over political power.
In Peoria, a village had grown up around the fort with a mixed French/French-Canadian population. After the territory became British and then American, the French-speaking population remained. The community’s leader in the 1770s was Jean-Baptiste Maillet, born in Quebec in 1753. An incident in the War of 1812 involving the village of Peoria demonstrates the extent of the town’s French-speaking population (though the town had a sizable Native population and also included English-speaking residents, particularly in connection with the American Fur Company). After the destruction of residents’ houses and barns by a unit of the Illinois militia, thirteen French-speakers whose property had been destroyed, including Pierre LeVasseur and Antoine Bourbonne, petitioned Congress for redress with regard to these “French lots.”
French speakers also continued to play an important role in the fur trade throughout the Illinois Country. One well-known example is Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, a trader likely born on the French Caribbean island of St. Domingue, which became the Republic of Haiti in 1804. In 1773, Pointe du Sable may have purchased land in Peoria. About six years later, Pointe du Sable and his Potawatomi wife Kitihawa built a trading post and farmstead on the north side of the Chicago River near its mouth at what is today downtown Chicago. Pointe du Sable is known today as the first permanent non-Native settler of Chicago. Significantly, the Illinois people were still present in the region—as were the Potawatomis, the Miamis, and others—and continued to participate in trade, though it was a time of unrest. Native people objected to changes in trading policies that the British tried to implement which they considered to be unfair, and their unhappiness at the disrespect—and worse—shown them over the years began to manifest itself in nativist uprisings such as Pontiac’s Rebellion in the 1760s.
From le Pays des Illinois to the State of Illinois
Following the signing of the Treaty of Paris of 1783, negotiated at the end of the American Revolution against Great Britain, the area that is now the state of Illinois was claimed as part of the new country. It was included in the administrative area ultimately called the Northwest Territory, then was part of Indiana Territory (1800-1809), and then Illinois Territory as of 1809. The capital of Illinois Territory was Kaskaskia, an indication of the continuing economic power of this part of the region.
Pierre Ménard, a successful French-Canadian businessman who worked out of Ste. Genevieve and Kaskaskia with partner Jean-Baptiste Vallé, became president of the Illinois Territory Legislative Council, serving from 1812 until 1818. When Illinois achieved statehood in 1818, Ménard won election to the position of Lieutenant Governor. The home of Pierre Ménard, built in the early 1800s near Chester, Illinois, is administered by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and can be toured by the public. The house is built in a style typical of French Creole homes of the lower Mississippi River valley.
Native People in the New State
At Illinois statehood, the desire for appropriation of land for purchase by settlers intensified, creating an existential threat for the resident Native people. Still living in Illinois, along with some members of the Illinois nation in the central part of the new state, were Potawatomis in the northeast and north central areas, Odawas and Ojibwes in the north central region, Sauks, Foxes, and Winnebagos in the northwest, and Kickapoos in central Illinois.
As elsewhere in the United States, the official pressure to give up their homelands was relentless and often violent. In order to induce them to give up their land, the U.S. authorities used practices such as attacking and burning Native villages, awarding bounties for the killing of Native people, and forcing them to sign treaties giving up their land. Native people resisted, fighting back in battles such as Little Turtle’s War of 1790-94 and the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 as well as smaller attacks. Ultimately, however, the Indian Removal policy was fully implemented by the U.S. government, resulting in the forced relocation of Native people far to the west of their homelands in events such as the Trail of Death experienced by the Miami people.
French-Canadian Immigration in the 19th Century
At the same time, the fur trade continued to function in Illinois at the beginning of the nineteenth century, dominated by John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company and still employing many French speakers from Quebec. It was in this context that a number of French-Canadians came to live in northeast Illinois. Quebecois Noel LeVasseur, with friend Gurdon Hubbard, was involved in purchasing Native lands that had been appropriated by the United States government and in opening the Chicago-to-Danville road through the Grand Prairie along the Kankakee River. By the late 1820s and early 1830s, LeVasseur joined other French-Canadians who were trading furs along the Kankakee River. Two brothers, François Bourbonnais, Sr., and Antoine Bourbonnais, gave their name to the new settlement, known then as Bourbonnais Grove, a name that may have been in use as early as 1823.
Noel LeVasseur was married twice and, as was not uncommon among traders of French and French-Canadian origin, his wives were Native, both Potawatomi. He and his first wife Mesawkequa, who was the daughter of Chief Shabonee and his wife Monoska, had two children. After they separated, LeVasseur married her sister Watchekee. Together they had three children. In both cases, LeVasseur’s wives traveled west with their Potawatomi compatriots in their forced removal. Potawatomi lands along the Kankakee River were taken after the Treaty of Camp Tippecanoe in 1832 and the Treaty of Chicago in 1833; Mesawkequa departed with her Potawatomi compatriots in 1835 and Watchekee in 1837.
The village of Bourbonnais Grove attracted more residents, and in 1837 a log schoolhouse was erected with the support of French-speaking families. It remained open until 1848, when it was converted into a home in which French-Canadian families lived until 2010. The log schoolhouse is still standing and was restored in 2021-22. The oldest existing house in Bourbonnais Grove, likely built on the stone foundation of the François Bourbonnais, Sr. family’s home, was also constructed in 1837. It was purchased by George Letourneau in 1854 and moved to its current location in 1986.
The Quebec connection played an important role in the growth of the village, as Noel LeVasseur and others made recruiting trips to the French-speaking province, with large numbers of French-Canadians arriving starting in 1846. In that year, at least 22 French-Canadian families lived in Bourbonnais Grove. The early religious life of the community was also led by French speakers, with missionary priests from the Diocese of Vincennes (Indiana), the Clerics of St. Viator in the U.S., the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, the Servants of the Holy Heart of Mary, and the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame playing leading roles in establishing a new parish and church as well as organizing schools from the 1840s to the 1860s.
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