Who was here when the French arrived?
The land between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River that we now call Illinois had long been inhabited by Native peoples by the time the French arrived and began calling it “le pays des Illinois” or the country of the Illinois people. Like the other parts of the French Heritage Corridor, this was a region where waterways linked people and facilitated trade, but it was also a transition area between two dominant biomes: to the east, woodlands, and to the west, the tallgrass prairie.
A people that is today called “Mississippian,” known for building large earthen mounds at population centers and religious sites, had dominated this region from around 700 C.E. until the mid-1300s. The largest city of the Mississippian culture was Cahokia, on the eastern side of the Mississippi River across from what is today St. Louis (Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site). Mississippian culture was widespread throughout the central part of the continent: sites with their characteristic mounds can be found as far south as Arkansas and Mississippi and as far north as Aztalan State Park in south central Wisconsin.
By the time the French arrived in this region the 1600s, however, the Mississippian culture had given way first to a people now known as the Oneota—ancestors of the Ho-Chunk, Ioway, Missouria, and Otoe people—and then to the Illinois people, who were the dominant culture encountered by the French in what is now the state of Illinois. Trade networks had long existed on the continent, and the arrival of Europeans in North America starting in the late 1500s meant there were new and valuable items available for trade. At the same time, devastating diseases brought by the European newcomers spread among the Native peoples, sharply reducing their population. The resulting competition among Native groups for resources and domination in trade networks as well as the effects of population loss created disruptions in tribal relationships throughout eastern North America, causing increasing movement of Native people, including in le Pays des Illinois.
The Ioway people moved west of the Mississippi River and the Ho-Chunk people located farther north, primarily in present-day Wisconsin. The Illinois, who scholars believe arrived in this area in the late 1500s, soon became a dominant power as middlemen in this region, with close trade relationships with the Miamis, the Osages, the Missourias, and the Odawas. Other tribes in close proximity were the Potawatomi to the north and east, the Kickapoo, Mascouten, and Piankeshaw to the east, and the Meskwaki and Sauk to the north. The Illinois were also in trade relationships with the Siouan people to the northwest.
Native Lifeways
In this area where the Great Lakes met the Mississippi River and woodlands transitioned to grasslands, the Illinois hunted bison, creating new seasonal lifeways that integrated farming activities and large-animal hunting. Archaeological evidence as well as written records from French explorers, missionaries, and traders show that the Illinois had semi-permanent summer camps where they farmed maize (corn), squash, and beans, storing the dried excess grains in protected caches, usually underground. They also hunted and trapped and collected fruits and berries. In order to hunt bison, the Illinois also organized winter camps of several weeks. Carrying out the kill and processing the animals meant work for all members of Illinois society: men hunted, while women prepared meat and hides. Bison provided meat while the hides were used for clothing and coverings, and bones furnished both marrow and material for tools and artwork.
The natural world provided materials in addition to food. In summer camps, the Illinois lived in large longhouses made of bent poles covered with reed mats. Archaeologists have measured longhouses at up to 52 feet long and 24 feet wide. Winter camp lodgings were smaller dome-shaped constructions, also made of poles covered with reed mats. Ceramics, used for both cooking and storage, have also been discovered at village sites.
Scholars estimate that there were some 12,000 to 15,000 Illinois people at the time of contact with the Europeans. There were numerous divisions or sub-groups of the Illinois Nation, with up to 14 groups prior to contact with the French: these included the Peorias, Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Tamaroas, Moingwenas, and Michigameas, along with others. They were linked by language and culture and maintained political and economic ties as well.
At the heart of Illinois society was the concept of kinship. People considered to be kin were insiders, trusted and privileged, and non-kin were outsiders, treated as enemies or at least less trustworthy. Marriage was one way to create and cement alliances among families and groups, facilitating trade and defensive relationships, since members of a kin group had responsibilities first of all to other members of the group. Through kin relationships, alliances were created not just among the Illinois sub-groups but with other Native groups as well. It was also possible to create what scholars call “fictive kinship” through ceremonies that created relationships with individuals or groups. Once this fictive kinship was established, these people or groups were part of the “family” and were treated as such in trade and other relationships.
Native Towns and Trade
Like other Native people, the Illinois understood the importance of waterways, and they established large villages on rivers. The most important Illinois village at the time that the French arrived was the town of Kaskaskia on the Illinois River, about 90 miles from Lake Michigan. Peorias and Tamaroas lived in the village of Pimiteoui, downstream from Kaskaskia. And a town established by the Peorias at the confluence of the Des Moines and Mississippi Rivers was visited by Marquette and Jolliet in 1673.
The Illinois trade networks were substantial and wide-ranging. They exchanged items such as European goods that they received by trading with Odawas and Miamis; they traded furs and hides, in particular bison hides; and they traded enslaved people that they captured from rival nations or that they received in trade from others and then passed on. Captives received in this way sometimes allowed Native groups to “replace” members who had died of disease or in battle. They could also serve to cement alliances between groups. Sacred links and obligations among groups were also created by rituals like the calumet ceremony, which featured ritual tobacco smoking in special decorated pipes made of catlinite or pipestone as well as dances and drumming. The French who came to Illinois Country would encounter all these cultural practices.
The Prairie Band Potawatomi have recently become the only federally recognized tribal nation in the state of Illinois. They have received back 130 acres of the nation’s ancestral land in Illinois, creating the first federally recognized land in the state. This Shab-eh-nay Reservation land is located in DeKalb County, on the northeast corner of Shabbona Lake State Park.
Illinois Pages