Editing Kaskaskia, Illinois (section)

===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>