The French established colonies along the St. Lawrence River at Quebec City, Trois-Rivières, and Montreal in the early part of the 17th century. They aimed to profit from the export of furs, hoped to find a water outlet that would take them to the Pacific Ocean and trade with China, and wanted to establish a stable colonial population. French explorers and traders were accompanied by Catholic missionaries hoping to convert the Native populations to Christianity.
To accomplish these multiple goals, the French needed to try to create alliances in the complex society established by Native people, a society with its own customs and economic and cultural relationships. The challenges they faced in that endeavor were no less daunting in the Illinois Country than in the St. Lawrence River valley.
Beginnings: Marquette and Jolliet
On June 17, 1673, Father Jacques Marquette and fur trader Louis Jolliet, along with five other men, entered the Mississippi River at the mouth of the Fox River near the site of present-day Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. They had received the approval of the colonial authorities, who wanted to know more about what lay west and south of French forts and missions in St. Ignace, Sault Ste. Marie, and Chequamegon (in present-day Wisconsin).
After traveling south on the Mississippi, in large part through territory inhabited by Illinois people, they stopped and turned back north near the mouth of the Arkansas River. Their return trip took a different route back to Lake Michigan, following the Illinois River upstream. They encountered a large Illinois village called Kaskaskia near what is today Starved Rock State Park, where Father Marquette would establish the Immaculate Conception Mission two years later.
French presence in the Illinois country in the 17th and 18th centuries became concentrated along the Illinois River and the Mississippi River. These were crucial waterways that linked the Great Lakes with the Mississippi valley and its connections both north and south; they were also routes that had long been used in Native trade relationships. Besides being useful in the fur trade, they also were near rich agricultural land that could be exploited as French and French-Canadian settlers took up residence.
Challenges for the French in the Pays des Illinois
It was difficult for the French to craft a consistent policy with regard to “le Pays d’en haut,” as they called the Great Lakes area, and “le pays des Illinois,” although they certainly wished to exploit the rich resources of this vast territory. It was a complex task requiring the creation and maintenance of relationships with numerous Native peoples to be carried out by a small French population in North America. In attempts to control the lucrative fur trade for French investors and the French crown, they did approve some expeditions, such as that of Marquette and Jolliet, to explore the region and establish missions. However, as time passed, the French authorities struggled to contain the number of individuals who set out into the area of present-day Illinois as independent fur traders not approved by the government, whom they called “coureurs de bois” (runners of the woods).
La Salle in the Illinois Country
One adventurer who did receive official approval was René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle for his expedition into the pays des Illinois. In 1680 La Salle and his men built the first French fortification in the Illinois country, Fort Crèvecoeur, on the Illinois River near the Peoria village at Pimeteoui, located two miles south of present-day East Peoria. The small fort had wooden palisades but was short-lived, as most of the men there deserted soon after it was constructed.
In 1682, La Salle’s expedition to find the mouth of the Mississippi River reached its destination, and La Salle claimed the whole Mississippi drainage area for the French crown, naming it la Louisiane in honor of King Louis XIV, ignoring the rights and histories of the varied Native peoples who had lived on that territory for centuries. After this time, la Nouvelle France—the name for the entire colonial territory in North America to which France laid claim—was divided into two administrative districts, Louisiana in the south and Canada in the north. The Illinois Country lay at the midpoint between these two districts, but its southern part ultimately began to look more toward Louisiana and the new colony of New Orleans, founded in 1718.
As La Salle continued his quest to develop trade with the Illinois people, he and his partner Henri de Tonty led construction of an Illinois River fort at the site of today’s Starved Rock State Park. Built in the winter of 1682 on top of a bluff overlooking the Illinois River, Fort St. Louis du Rocher was surrounded by palisades with three blockhouses. Inside the palisade were several small buildings, including a chapel. However, this was a period of instability in the Illinois country, with attacks on the Illinois people by the Iroquois nation ongoing. By around 1691 the decision was made to abandon Fort St. Louis du Rocher, just as the Illinois Natives were choosing to leave their village of Kaskaskia not far away for safer camps near Lake Peoria.
It was near Lake Peoria and the village on Lake Pimeteoui—inhabited by Kaskaskias and Peorias, part of the Illinois confederation—that the next French fort was constructed as well, with construction overseen by Henri de Tonty and his cousin Pierre Deliette, in 1691-92. This fort and trading post, Fort St. Louis du Pimeteoui, served as a central point for Tonty to organize fur trade parties to venture farther west and north. The fort may have been situated near the intersection of present-day Mary and Adams Streets in Peoria, Illinois.
Religious Presence
The Frenchmen venturing into le Pays du nord and the Illinois Country in the 1600s were not all fur traders or soldiers: like Father Marquette, priests also traveled throughout the region on behalf of their religious orders seeking to establish missions and carry out evangelization efforts among the Native people. Father Marquette established the earliest mission in the Illinois Country at Kaskaskia, the Illinois village (in the present-day Utica/Ottawa area) in 1675. The Mission of the Guardian Angel was established in 1699 by Jesuit Father Pierre-François Pinet at the site of what is today downtown Chicago; it closed shortly afterward.
Subsequently, Father Pinet founded a mission in the village of Cahokia, across the river from present-day St. Louis. Then, representatives of the Seminary of Foreign Missions from Quebec founded a second mission in Cahokia. They built a log church which was dedicated in 1699. Holy Family Church, reconstructed with logs from the original church after that structure burned in 1740, and dedicated in 1799, stands today in Cahokia, Illinois. With the founding of these missions, the priests hoped to convert the Tamaroa and Cahokia Illinois people to Christianity. Another mission was founded farther downstream at the Mississippi River town of Kaskaskia in 1699.
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