All Native American History

Manito or manitou is an Algonquian word meaning unknown power. A plaque erected in town in 2003 relates the following: “The town was first known as Black Hawk Grove, but the citizens were not satisfied with that name. They searched for a stronger name and many wee suggested. One resident, inspired by Henry Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha” proposed the name Read more...

A museum dedicated to Bureau County history, including an extensive exhibit of prehistoric Native American artifacts. Read more...

Based on a French/Illinois dictionary assembled by the Jesuit priest Jean LeBoullenger between 1704 and 1740, the term emicouene is translated as “citrouilles,” which means pumpkin in French. Thus, Esarey concludes that the place name for the Spoon River may be translated as River of the Pumpkins. Today, the term is applied by The Nature Conservancy to their Emiquon Preserve Read more...

In 1673, Pere Jacques Marquette, Louis Jolliet, and a small group of Frenchman began an epic journey from the north end of Lake Michigan to Green Bay, across Wisconsin to the Mississippi River, down the Mississippi River as far south as present-day Arkansas, where they turned around and headed upstream. When they reached the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Read more...

In addition to the Newell Fort exhibit, the Starved Rock Visitors Center features exhibits on Fort St. Louis and the Grand Village of the Kaskaskia. Read more...

From the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 to 1832, the tribes had been forced westward as American settlement expanded. Between 1800 and 1809, most of Illinois had been ceded, often under duress, through treaties between the United States and the Illinois, Kickapoo, Meskwaki, Piankashaw, Potawatomi, and Sauk tribes. Tribal resistance to American settlement was growing and encouraged by the Read more...

In 1804, a small group of Sauk and Meskwaki leaders traveled to St. Louis to seek the release of an incarcerated Sauk man. Before they left St. Louis, they had signed a treaty transferring title to all the land west of the Illinois and Fox Rivers to the Mississippi River and extending into Wisconsin for $1,000 per year. According to Read more...

The Illinois River Road National Scenic Byway has been described as a “museum without walls.” As such, one may consider each Native American history point of interest as an exhibit. As is the case with most museums, a visitor has the freedom to roam about the exhibits in any order they choose. At the same time, exhibits are often organized Read more...

Artifacts found in the park confirm the presence of Native Americans by about 12,000 years ago and document their use of the area since. More than 100 Native American sites have been documented in the park. In the winter of 1682, men led by LaSalle and Henri de Tonty built Fort St. Louis on the crest of Le Rocher, the Read more...

Mound building involved excavating earth and transporting it a basket load at a time. It has been estimated that there are more than 1,700,000 basket loads of earth in the Rockwell mound. The mound is probably a cemetery, one of many burial mounds found in and nearby Havana. Based on similarities in artifacts from mounds and villages along the Illinois Read more...

The Illinois River Encounter exhibit includes Native American history. Read more...

Marquette was born in Laon, France in 1637 and educated by the Society of Jesus. Assigned to New France in 1666, he learned six different Native American dialects. It was while he was stationed in the western Great Lakes that he learned about a trading route along a major river in the midcontinent. His superiors approved his request to explore Read more...

Historical Marker Illinois State Historical Society The city of Peoria was named for the Peoria tribe of the Iliniwek Indian Confederacy who once lived here. It was in 1673 that Jacques Marquette and the explorer Louis Jolliet traveled through the widened portion of the Illinois River know as Lake Peoria, on which the city is situated. Robert Cavalier, Sieur De Read more...

In 1688, Pierre Liette accompanied members of the Illinois on a bison hunt. His first-person narrative recounts in vivid detail the landscape, the roles of men, women, and children hunting bison, and how terrified Liette was when he first encountered a bison. The LaSalle Street mural depicts bison in full stride and Native American archers taking aim. It was design Read more...

The Ogden-Fettie Mound is one of many large groups of Middle Woodland mounds in the Illinois River valley. It is one of a handful of Native American burial mounds that remain where once there were 35 or more arranged in a huge crescent. Standing 15 feet tall, the mound was made from earth gathering by Native American hands and transported Read more...

In 1867, Colonel Daniel Hitt surveyed an irregularly shaped earthwork at the head of French Canyon, near Starved Rock. He called it the “Old Fort.” John Newell and his son John Jr. returned to the “Old Fort” seventy years later to unearth its secrets. They spent several years excavating, eventually accumulating a substantial collection of 18th century artifacts. In 1999, Read more...

This museum features a variety of exhibits about local history including an extensive collection of Indian artifacts, many of which were unearthed at the Grand Village of the Illinois, also known as the Zimmerman site. There are also exhibits of the entire spectrum of Native American artifacts found in LaSalle County. Read more...

Gomo and his brother Senachwine were orphaned as children and raised by a French trader in Peoria. In time, he returned to the Potawatomi and eventually became the senior chief among the Illinois River villages. Tension created by expansion of American settlement and Native American resistance led to negotiations between Gomo and Ninian Edwards, the territorial governor. The Americans reminded Read more...

In 1804, a small group of Sauk and Meskwaki leaders traveled to St. Louis to seek the release of an incarcerated Sauk man. Before they left St. Louis, they had signed a treaty transferring title to all the land west of the Illinois and Fox Rivers to the Mississippi River and extending into Wisconsin for $1,000 per year. According to Read more...

Louis XIV, the King of France, granted LaSalle a five-year patent to explore the western part of New France. LaSalle chose to base his enterprise along the Illinois River because it was the most direct route from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. After meeting with the Illinois at their winter village in present-day Read more...

In October 1812, Ninian Edwards, Territorial Governor of Illinois, launched a three-pronged attack on Native American villages at Peoria Lake. He believed the villages harbored warriors who had attacked American settlements. Edwards led a horse-mounted force and destroyed Black Partridge’s village on the east side of the lake. On November 5, 1812, Captain Thomas Craig arrived by boat at the Read more...

In the late 1950s and 1960s, archaeologists discovered and excavated the remains of three buildings: a rectangular ceremonial building, a sweat lodge, and a cross-shaped building. Based on artifacts and the proximity of the large cemetery located on the nearby bluff, they concluded that the buildings were used for rituals, likely related to funerals. For example, sweat lodges are used Read more...

For thousands of years, Native Americans relied on aquatic and terrestrial resources found in the Illinois River floodplain. They built villages beyond the reach of floods, while groups of gatherers and hunters traveled throughout the floodplain in search of desired resources. Traces of those settlements remain. Travel to the Lakeside Observatory. On the crest of the river valley bluffs to Read more...

Dickson Mounds provides the best overview of Illinois River Valley Native American history. The Museum features exhibits and audio-visual programs that recount the development of Native American life in the Illinois River valley. The exhibits tell a story that begins with Native Americans arriving near the end of the Ice Age when colossal creatures such as the American Mastodon still Read more...

Two of the mounds were in the right-of-way of a Route 29 realignment. Both were excavated in 1940 by the Illinois State Museum and the University of Chicago. The remains of several adults and children were found in a log tomb located at the center of one of the mounds. Among the artifacts found in the tomb were flint blades, Read more...