Recovering
Illinois'
French
heritage
By PEGGY BOYER LONG
Charles J. Balesi. The Time of the
French in the Heart of North America,
1673-1818. Chicago: Alliance Francaise
Chicago, 1992. Pp. 346 with illustrations, bibliography and index. $17
(paper).
John A. Walthall, ed. French Colonial
Archaeology: The Illlinois Country and
the Western Great Lakes. Urbana and
Chicago: University of Illinois Press,
1991. Pp. 290 with illustrations, tables,
biographical notes and bibliography.
$39.95 (cloth).
The French were the first whites
to explore and settle what is
now Illinois. They spent more
than a century along our rivers, building
missions to convert the Indians, forts to
protect their fur trade and, finally, villages to exploit the region's mineral and
agricultural resources. Ultimately, the
missions and forts were abandoned,
along with the dream of an empire. And
much of the rich 18th-century culture
of the voyageurs and habitans was
washed from the landscape as first British soldiers, then waves of American
settlers, flowed into the Illinois Country.
In fact, the shared theme of these two
recent books is loss — the breakup of
France's colonial enterprise and the
continuing erosion of our state's cultural heritage.
Historian Charles Balesi believes the
transformation of the West was certain
after the Louisiana Purchase. In 1803
Napoleon centered his attention on Europe and ceded the vast Louisiana colony to the United States, including the
strategic river port New Orleans. A
barrier to American navigation of the
Mississippi had been removed. The
American pioneers, Balesi writes,
"filled with an enthusiastic spirit of
development, had neither the interest
nor patience for any excessive baggage
from the past. When the forests were
cut down, the prairie turned over, and
the Indians driven away, the communities the French had created from the
Great Lakes to the Mississippi were
doomed. Small in numbers and widely
dispersed across a vast land, only on
maps were the names to survive, a mute
testimony of forgotten struggles."
The Time of the French details the
politics and economics of French colonization in North America — both the
shifts in policy in France and the competing interests of the two polar ends of
the empire, one above the Great Lakes,
the other at the mouth of the Mississippi. All of these forces played themselves
out in the Illinois Country.
Balesi peoples this story with some
memorable characters. Father Jacques
Marquette is here, of course, and Louis
Jolliet, who gave us the first recorded
description of central Illinois. So is
Robert Rene Cavelier de La Salle, with
his manic energy and his inexorable
drive to stay ahead of his creditors long
enough to claim all of the Mississippi
for France. A number of less familiar
figures are included as well. One is
Pierre De Liette, who left a valuable
account of the Illinois tribes.
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In the end, the French who
lived in the Illinois Country
were abandoned by policies
made elsewhere and
overwhelmed by
English-speaking settlers . . .
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But Balesi's most interesting contribution is an assessment of the French
character and the ways in which that
character helped foreclose the country's
North American venture. While the
French made enthusiastic explorers and
relentless missionaries, they were reluctant colonists and indifferent farmers. In
the end, the French who lived in the
Illinois Country were abandoned by
policies made elsewhere and overwhelmed, then outmaneuvered, by
English-speaking settlers who were
more adept at navigating the legal intricacies of land claims in a new nation.
If Balesi ends his study on a poignant
note, French Colonial Archaeology
opens with a sense of urgency. This
collection outlines the material evidence of French occupation in the Illinois Country, evidence which continues
to be erased.
Contributors update some 50 years
of archaeological investigations, beginning with the earliest excavations — the
Cahokia Courthouse on the American
bottom along the Mississippi and Fort
Massac on the Ohio River at the southern tip of the state. Yet, as much as
anything, this collection is a testament
to how little of the physical record has
been recovered. It challenges archaeologists to dig deeper into the social
economy of the colonists, to uncover
the day-to-day lives of French farmers
and tradesmen. Yet, if archaeologists
have been slow to unearth fragments of
French life on the frontier, they argue
that, while the state is rich in archaeological potential, they've had little support for their labor-intensive scholarship.
Ironically, some of the earliest
historic-era archaeology in the country
was done in Illinois. But the public's
interest has never extended much beyond what can be seen above ground,
and these government-backed "digs"
were limited to striking examples of
French structures. Many such structures
have been preserved and are now part
of the state's French Colonial Historic
District, which stretches south from Cahokia and includes examples of forts,
houses and churches. Since the Depression era, however, government dollars
for such activity have dried up and
recent investigations generally have
centered on those sites which are already in the public domain.
The authors argue that little archaeological work has been done on less
visible remains of villages, and virtually
none on old French industries. Such
sites, they believe, can give us a better
sense of colonial adaptation to the fron-
36/June 1993/Illinois Issues
tier. Yet, they note, it is these very
settlements, often located in high population areas, which are most endangered by modern development. Still,
editor John Walthall, chief archaeologist of the state's transportation department, has gathered essays from scholars
with a range of interests in the period.
Military sites are well represented, including LaSalle's Fort St. Louis along
the Illinois River at what is now called
Starved Rock.
Contributors review research
at a fur trading post on the
Wabash River, as well as
restoration of the vertical
log Church of the Holy
Family at Cahokia and a
number of domestic sites . . .
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Contributors review research at a fur
trading post on the Wabash River, as
well as restoration of the vertical log
Church of the Holy Family at Cahokia
and a number of domestic sites, including the Martin/Boismenue House in
Prairie du Pont. Scholars believe this
house, the oldest known residence in
Illinois, may show a transition from
French to English or American construction style.
French Colonial Archaeology is likely
to appeal primarily to archaeologists
and researchers in related fields. Yet,
there is enough drama in the search for
the story of Illinois' earliest European
settlers to hold the interest of lay readers as well. The tale of the reconstruction of Cahokia Courthouse is worth
the price of the book. It was accomplished, in part, by researchers who
calculated the probable dimensions of
the structure from an old photo.
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The authors of these two books have
given us a human-scale rendering of the
lives of the French explorers, soldiers,
missionaries, traders and settlers who
left their imprint, however faint, on our
state's landscape and culture.
Peggy Boyer Long is an independent journalist who specializes in Illinois politics and
social history.
June 1993/Illinois Issues/37