Editing Kaskaskia, Illinois (section)

==History==
The site of Kaskaskia near the Mississippi River was long inhabited by varying [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native American]] indigenous peoples for thousands of years. The [[Kaskaskia]], part of the [[Illiniwek]] peoples, colonized this area in the 1600s,<ref>Morrissey, p. 669</ref> and lived there at the time of European encounter and traded with the early French colonists. Historically this name was referred to with many spelling variations, as Kasklas, Kaskasky, Cas-caskias, Kasquskias, and Kaskaskias.

During the [[Beaver Wars]], Kaskaskia grew as people sought common defense against Iroquois raids.<ref>Morrissey, p. 677-8</ref> The numbers swelled to around twenty thousand people by the 1680s.<ref>Morrissey, pg. 682</ref> Kaskaskia aligned with the French to aid in defense against the Iroquois. The French also gave them trade goods, which Kaskaskia merchants used to trade with nations too far South or West for French traders to reach. Kaskaskia became heavily involved in the slave trade, capturing and selling people from neighboring nations.<ref>Morrissey, pp. 678-80</ref>

By the 1690s, Kaskaskia was in decline. This was in part due to an epidemic that hit the large town particularly hard.<ref name=Morrissey690>Morrissey, p. 690</ref> By this time, it had also become harder to obtain sources of wood and bison near Kaskaskia.<ref name=Morrissey690 /> The [[Great Peace of Montreal]] in 1701, which ended the Beaver Wars, also reduced the need for mutual defense.

===French settlement===
In 1703, [[French people|French]] [[Jesuit]] missionaries established a mission with the goal of converting the [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]] to [[Catholicism]]. The congregation built its first stone church in 1714. The French also had a [[fur trading]] post in the village.<ref>[http://www.nps.gov/archTheBicentennial/Symposium2001/Papers/Faherty_FrWilliam. "Father William Faherty Papers"], Symposium 2001, National Park Service, accessed April 14, 2010.</ref> [[Canadien]] settlers moved in to farm and to exploit the lead mines on the opposite side of the river (now in [[Missouri]]).
 
Favorably situated on a peninsula on the east side of the Mississippi River, Kaskaskia became a large settlement center attracting a large proportion of the region's Native American population. It became the capital of [[Upper Louisiana]] and the French built [[Fort de Chartres]] nearby in 1718. In the same year they imported the first [[Atlantic slave trade|enslaved Africans]], shipped from [[Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic|Santo Domingo]] in the Caribbean, to work as laborers in the [[lead]] [[Mining|mines]].<ref>{{cite journal |author=Wedel, Mildred Mott |title= Claude-Charles Dutisne: A Review of His 1719 Journeys |journal=Great Plains Journal |volume= 12 |issue=1 |date=Fall 1972 |pages=4–25}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Wedel, Mildred Mott |title=Claude-Charles Dutisne: A Review of His 1719 Journeys |journal=Great Plains Journal |volume=12 |issue=2 |date=Winter 1973 |pages=147–173}}</ref>

In the years of early French settlement, Kaskaskia was a multicultural village, consisting of a few French men and numerous [[Illinois Confederation|Illinois]] and other [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|American Indians]]. In 1707, the population of the community was estimated at 2,200, the majority of them Illinois who lived somewhat apart from the Europeans. Writing of Kaskaskia about 1715, a visitor said that the village consisted of 400 Illinois men, "good people"; two [[Jesuit]] missionaries, and "about twenty French [[voyageurs]] who have settled there and married Indian women."<ref>Norall, Frank. ''Bourgmont, Explorer of the Missouri'', 1698-1725.  Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988. p. 107</ref> Of 21 children whose birth and baptism was recorded in Kaskaskia before 1714, 18 had mothers who were Indian and 20 had fathers who were French. One devout Catholic, full-blooded Indian woman disowned her [[mixed-race]] son for living "among the savage nations".<ref>Ekberg, Carl J. ''French Roots in the Illinois Country: The Mississippi Frontier in Colonial Times'', Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000. pp. 153-154</ref>

Many of the [[Canadiens]] and their descendants at Kaskaskia became voyageurs and [[coureurs des bois]], who would explore and exploit the [[Missouri River]] country for fur trading. The Canadiens had the goal of trading with all the Prairie tribes, and beyond them, with the [[Spanish people|Spanish]] colony in [[New Mexico]]. The Spanish intended to keep control of the latter trade. The Canadien goals stimulated the expedition of [[Claude Charles Du Tisne]] to establish trade relations with the [[Plains Indians]] in 1719.

[[File:Kaskaskia Bell 3321.jpg|thumb|right|The bell donated by King Louis XV in 1741, later called the "Liberty Bell of the West", after it was rung to announce the U.S. victory in the Revolution]]
King [[Louis XV]] sent a [[Kaskaskia Bell State Memorial|bell]] to Kaskaskia in 1741 for its church, one of several constructed there.<ref name="ChurchVisitorsGuide">[http://www.greatriverroad.com/stegen/randattract/kaskchurch.htm "Visitors' Guide: Immaculate Conception Church"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090825142937/http://www.greatriverroad.com/stegen/randattract/kaskchurch.htm |date=2009-08-25 |df=mdy-all}}, Great River Road, accessed November 9, 2009.</ref> During the years of French rule, Kaskaskia and the other agricultural settlements in the [[Illinois Country]] were critical for supplying [[Lower Louisiana]], especially [[New Orleans]], with [[wheat]] and [[maize|corn]], as these staple crops could not be grown in the Gulf climate. Farmers shipped tons of flour south over the years, which helped New Orleans survive.

The French settlers raised [[Fort Kaskaskia]] around 1759; the fort stood atop the bluff that overlooked the frontier village.[1] "Fort Kaskaskia" is not technically a "fort", but an earthen redoubt. Frontier settlers throughout Woodland North America often built such redoubts for defense during times of threat from Native Americans.

In 1763, the French ceded the Illinois country, including Kaskaskia and the redoubt, to Great Britain after being defeated in the Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War on the North American front). The British did not use the redoubt but from 1766 through 1772, maintained a rotating detachment of around 25 men under a junior officer, from Fort de Chartres. They used the Jesuit compound as their base.

Rather than live under British rule after France ceded the territory east of the river, many French-speaking people from Kaskaskia and other colonial towns moved west of the Mississippi to [[Ste. Genevieve, Missouri|Ste. Genevieve]], [[St. Louis]], and other areas. In May 1772, when the British abandoned Fort de Chartres, Kaskaskia continued to survive as a primarily French-speaking village on the Mississippi River frontier.

===American settlement===
During one of the westernmost military campaigns of the [[American Revolution]], the city fell on July 4, 1778, to [[George Rogers Clark]] and his force of 200 men, including Captains [[Joseph Bowman]] and [[Leonard Helm]]. The parish rang the church bell in celebration, and it has since been called the "liberty bell". The brick church, built in 1843 in the squared-off French style, was later moved to the restored village of Kaskaskia on the west side of the Mississippi.<ref name="ChurchVisitorsGuide"/>

[[File:Kaskaskia state house Making of Illinois Skinner House.jpg|thumb|right|Kaskaskia state house as it stood in late 1880 or early 1881]]

In 1803, the Kaskaskia people, for whom the town is named, signed a treaty with the United States of America, arranged by future president [[William Henry Harrison]], who was at that time governor of the [[Indiana territory]], and Kaskaskia chief Jean Baptiste Ducoigne. Ducoigne was of mixed descent, noted for being friendly with the United States and being hated by other tribal chiefs.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hodge |first1=Frederick Webb |title=The Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico |date=1906 |publisher=Bureau of American Ethnology, Government Printing Office}}</ref> The treaty specifically provides for a house on a lot of "no more than one hundred acres" for Jean Baptiste Ducoigne and that a "suitable sum" of all material and monetary payments to the tribe would be reserved for the chief and his family. This treaty was said to "rightfully represent" not only the Kaskaskia tribe but also the Cahokia, Mitchigamia, and Tamarois, though the signatures for those tribes were not made by chiefs and were marked only with 'X' and a notation of the individual's name, one of which was noted as "Micolas or Nicolas".

In exchange for ceding a tract of land comprising approximately half the area of modern-day Illinois, the Kaskaskia and associated tribes were allotted three hundred fifty acres "near the town of Kaskaskia", as well as the right to relocate to another larger settlement within the ceded territory.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kappler |first1=Charles J. |title=Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, Vol. II (Treaties) |date=1904 |publisher=The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Government Printing Office |location=Washington |pages=67–8 |hdl=2027/uc1.31210003349790 |url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31210003349790}}</ref>

As a center of the regional economy, Kaskaskia served as the capital of Illinois Territory from 1809 until statehood was gained in 1818, and then as the state capital until 1819. The first Illinois newspaper, the ''[[Illinois Intelligencer|Illinois Herald]]'', was published here on June 24, 1814.<ref name="Anniversaries 1949">{{cite news | title = Anniversaries in 1949 of Events Recorded in The Missourian Files | work =Southeast Missouri | location = Cape Girardeau, Missouri |date=January 29, 1949}}</ref> In 1818 it was the site of the state's [[first Illinois Constitutional Convention|first constitutional convention]] and [[1st Illinois General Assembly|first legislative session]].

The city's peak population was about 7,000, before the capital was moved in 1819 to [[Vandalia, Illinois|Vandalia]]. Although the introduction of [[steamboats]] on the Mississippi River stimulated the economies of river towns, in the 19th century, their use also had devastating environmental effects. [[Deforestation]] of the river banks followed steamboat crews' regular cutting of trees, which were used to feed the engine boiler fires as fuel to power the steamboats. Through this rapid, man-made [[erosion]], river banks became unstable, resulting in massive amounts of [[soil]] to collapse into the flowing water.<ref name="Norris"/>

In 1832, during the era of [[Indian removal]], the Peoria tribe, speaking for Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Mitchigamia, and Tamarois, signed a second treaty. This treaty was arranged by Superintendent of Indian Affairs [[William Clark]], who was at that same time a figurehead in the implementation of the [[Indian Removal Act]], associated with the [[Trail of Tears]] further south. The treaty was signed two months after the end of the [[Black Hawk War]] in northwestern Illinois, between the [[Sauk people|Sauk]] tribe and the United States. The Sauk disputed the validity of a treaty similar to the Kaskaskia treaty of 1803, arranged by William Henry Harrison in 1804. The Sauk lost the Black Hawk War, resulting in the death of half of the Sauk forces. The Kaskaskia treaty of 1832 relinquished all lands reserved for the tribe in the 1803 treaty with the exception of 350 acres near the town of Kaskaskia, Illinois, reserved to Ellen Ducoigne, a daughter of Jean Baptiste Ducoigne who had married a white man. All other members of all five tribes mentioned in the treaty were relocated to [[Indian Country]] in modern-day [[Kansas]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kappler |first1=Charles J. |title=Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties, Vol. II (Treaties) |date=1904 |publisher=The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Government Printing Office |location=Washington |pages=367–8 |hdl=2027/uc1.31210003349790 |url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31210003349790}}</ref>

===Effects of the Mississippi River===
[[File:1875 Kaskaskia with present day satellite imagery.png|thumb|1875 map of Kaskaskia, Illinois, overlaid upon satellite imagery from 2019. Most of the original town site of Kaskaskia is now covered by the Mississippi River, including the location of the first Illinois state house.]]
From [[St. Louis]] to the confluence of the [[Ohio River]], the Mississippi became wider and more shallow, resulting in more severe seasonal flooding. In the late 19th century, the town was cut off from the Illinois mainland and mostly destroyed by repeated [[flooding]] and a channel change by the Mississippi River. Much of the former property of Kaskaskia and other French colonial towns on the river has been lost.<ref name="Norris">F. Terry Norris, "Where Did the Villages Go? Steamboats, Deforestation, and Archaeological Loss in the Mississippi Valley", in ''Common Fields: An Environmental History of St. Louis'', Andrew Hurley, ed., St. Louis, MO: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1997, pp. 73-89</ref> Following the [[Great Flood of 1844]], residents of Kaskaskia relocated the town to the south. The original location of Kaskaskia became an island, surrounded by the Mississippi River. The flood of 1881 destroyed all remnants of the original town and the Mississippi shifted into the channel of the [[Kaskaskia River]], passing east instead of west of the town.

Parts of the town were rebuilt in the new area. As the Mississippi continued to flow through its new bed, earth was deposited so that the village land became physically attached to the west bank of the river, which primarily lies within the boundaries of the state of [[Missouri]]. Now a [[bayou]], the old channel is regularly flooded by the river. A small bridge carries traffic from the mainland over the bayou to Kaskaskia and its surrounding farmlands in the floodplain. A levee lines the river to the east. In 1893 the people of the town moved and rebuilt the Church of the Immaculate Conception at Kaskaskia. They also built a [[Kaskaskia Bell State Memorial|shrine]] in a similar style nearby to house the "liberty bell".<ref name="ChurchVisitorsGuide"/>

By 1950, only 112 people lived in Kaskaskia. By 1970, the population had fallen to 79, and it continued to decline to 33 in 1980. The town was submerged under nine feet of water by the [[Great Flood of 1993]], which reached the roofs of the buildings. By 2000, with nine residents, Kaskaskia was almost a [[ghost town]], the least populous incorporated community in the state of Illinois.