Utica La Salle Illinois United States
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The Kaskaskia people, whose large settlement on the north side of the Illinois River is known as the Grand Village of the Illinois, are the earliest group of inhabitants recorded at the region around Starved Rock, along the south bank of the Illinois River in present central Illinois.
The Kaskaskia are members of the Illinois Confederation (Illini), who inhabit the region in the 1500s through the 1700s.
They live in wigwams made of lightweight material and thus easily dismantled when they travel to hunt bison twice a year.
The women gather tubers from nearby swamps as a secondary source of food.
Small bands of aggressive Iroquois settlers arrive in northern Illinois in 1660 in search of new hunting grounds for beaver, stimulating intertribal warfare.
The Kaskaskia struggle with the Iroquois, who are armed with guns seized from or traded by Europeans on the eastern seaboard.
Jolliet and Marquette, the first Europeans recorded as exploring the region of Starved Rock, find seventy-three cabins along the river in the Grand Village of the Illinois, whose Kaskaskian population will rapidly expand in the next several years.
Marquette travels westward and in the spring of 1675 celebrates a public mass at the Grand Village of the Illinois near Starved Rock.
He sets up the Mission of the Immaculate Conception, the first Christian mission in modern-day Illinois.
The Grand Village is now home to several hundred native cabins and a population of six thousand to nine thousand.
Nearly six hundred Iroquois warriors, armed with guns, on September 10, 1680, approach the Kaskaskia village.
Henri de Tonti, meeting them in advance, is accused of treachery, by both the Iroquois and the Illinois Confederation.
Tonti tries to mediate their disagreements and delay the Iroquois invasion until the women, children and old people can escape from the village; he is wounded by an Iroquois man, who stabs him with a knife.
The Kaskaskia village is burned and the Iroquois build a fort on this site at Starved Rock.
Tonti flees the area with his allies, heading for Green Bay.
La Salle, on his return voyage in the winter of 1682, had established Fort Saint Louis to replace Fort Crevecoeur, situated on a large butte by the river.
Called La Roches, the butte provides an advantageous position for the fort above the Illinois River.
A wooden palisade is the only form of defense that La Salle has used in securing the site.
Inside the fort are a few wooden houses and native shelters.
La Salle, appointeing Tonti to command the fort, has traveled to France for supplies.
With an increase in French settlers in the area, the Kaskaskia return by 1683.
The French, who intend St. Louis to be the first of several forts to defend against English incursions and keep their settlements confined to the East Coast, are able to provide the Kaskaskia with guns in exchange for other goods, which they use for defense against the powerful Iroquois, already armed by the English.
Accompanying the French to the region are allied members of several native tribes from eastern areas, who integrate with the Kaskaskia: the Miami, Shawnee, and Mahican.
The tribes establish a new settlement at the base of the butte known as Hotel Plaza.