In the work here presented, an attempt has been made to apply in the field of history, the study of types so long in use in biological science. If the settlement of Illinois had been an isolated historical fact, its narration would have been too provincial to be seriously considered, but in many respects, the history of this settlement is typical of that of other regions. The Indian question, the land question, the transportation problem, the problem of local government; these are a few of the c

In point of numbers and of occupied territory, the French population was trifling in comparison with the Indian. In 1766-67, the white inhabitants of the region were estimated at about two thousand. 6 Some five years later, 7 Kaskaskia was reported as having about five hundred white and between four and five hundred black inhabitants; Prairie du Rocher, one hundred whites and eighty negroes; Fort Chartres, a very few inhabitants; St. Philips, two or three families; and Cahokia, three hundred whi

The military troubles continued. The commander at Vincennes reported his troops as destitute and unpaid. Richard Winston, of Kaskaskia, who had succeeded Todd as head of the civil government in Illinois, was arrested by military force and put in jail. The prisoner claimed that the proceedings were wholly irregular and that he was unacquainted with the nature of the charge against him. 76 The next year, he was accused of treason, the accuser declaring that Winston had proposed to turn Illinois ov

Petitions from various classes of settlers, not provided for by the acts of June 20, August 28, and August 29, 1788, led Congress to pass the act of March 3, 1791. By this act, four hundred acres was to be given to each head of a family who, in 1783, was resident in the Illinois country or at Vincennes, and who had since moved from the one to the other. The same donation was to be made to all persons who had moved away, if they should return within five years. Such persons should also have confi

The early laws of the Northwest Territory throw light upon the conditions existing upon the frontier. Minute provisions for establishing and maintaining ferries, with no mention of bridges, indicate the primitive methods of travel. 181 Millers were required to use a prescribed set of measures and to grind for a prescribed toll, the toll for the use of a horse-mill being higher than that for a water-mill, unless the owner of the grain furnished the horses. 182 Guide-posts were to be put up at the

One who settled in Illinois at this period came through danger to danger, for Indians lurked in the woods and malaria waited in the lowlands. The journey made by the immigrants was tedious and difficult, and was often rendered dangerous by precipitous and rough hills and swollen streams, if the journey was overland, or by snags, shoals and rapids, if by water. A large proportion of the settlers came from Maryland, Virginia, or the Carolinas. Those from Virginia and Maryland were induced to emigr

A few days after preparing the above memorial, the legislature prepared an address to Congress, in which reference was made to the arrangement made between Congress and Ohio by the Act of April 30, 1802, granting to Ohio two salt springs on condition that the state should agree not to tax such public lands as should be sold within her borders, until after five years from the date of sale. Illinois wished in similar fashion to gain control of the salt springs on Saline creek. The Illinois delegat

The first legislature had few French members, and was apparently southern in nativity. 271 After more than three years and a half of legislation by the Governor and judges, the inhabitants at last had an elective legislature. The journals of the two houses indicate that the belief that had been expressed in petitions to Congress some years before that such a body would provide an efficient government, was well founded. The laws passed were eminently practical for the frontier conditions under wh

The changes in government and in the land question in Illinois were typical of changes in other frontier regions, but although worthy of note as helping to make a more attractive place for settlement, they are by no means sufficient to account for the great migration to the westward. Why that migration took place and how it was accomplished are interesting and important questions. Emigration from New England resulted largely from financial and industrial disorganization caused by the close of th

This list incidentally indicates the average price of several manufactured articles. For the first six months of 1814, the internal revenue assessed in Illinois was: Of this amount ($1392.74), $1047.37 had been paid by October 10, 1814. 307 For the period from April 18, 1815, to February 22, 1816, the following were the internal duties: This was the smallest sum listed in any part of the United States, except Michigan Territory. 308 For 1818: Of this amount, $1966.41 was paid, only Indiana and M

A war with the Winnebago tribe was imminent in 1827. Settlers in the northern part of the state either fled to the southward or collected at such points as Galena or Prairie du Chien. “This was a period of great suffering at Galena. The weather was inclement and two or three thousand persons driven suddenly in, with scant provisions, without ammunition or weapons encamped in the open air, or cloth tents which were but little better, were placed in a very disagreeable and critical position.” 333

Within the state one of the phenomena which has characterized frontier regions appeared about the year 1821. A desperate gang of immigrants had robbed and plundered until, after a most notable robbery, “a public meeting was held, and among other things, a company was formed, consisting of ten law-abiding men of well-known courage, who bound themselves together, under the name of the Regulators of the Valley, to rid the country of horse thieves and robbers.... A regular constitution was drawn up

Many immigrants came overland. The following is typical: “In the year 1819 a party of six men, and families of three of them, started from Casey County, Kentucky, for Illinois.... The first three were young unmarried men, the last three had their wives and children with them. They came in an old-fashioned Tennessee wagon, that resembled a flat-boat on wheels. The younger readers of this sketch can form but a faint idea of the curious and awkward appearance of one of these old fashioned wagons, c

It was easy to obtain land. After 1820 it could be bought from the government of the United States at $1.25 per acre, it could be rented—sometimes for one peck of corn per acre per year 442 —, or the claim of a squatter could be purchased. When Peter Cartwright moved from Kentucky to Illinois in 1824, he gave as reasons for moving the fact that he had six children and but one hundred and fifty acres of land, and that Kentucky land was high and rising in value; the increase of a disposition in th

Whatever the merits of the argument, slavery did exist in Illinois. The fear of the French that they might lose their slaves, and the desire to attract slaveholders to Illinois, led to determined and repeated efforts to legalize slavery. Early in 1796 a petition was sent from Kaskaskia to Congress, praying that the anti-slavery article in the Ordinance of 1787 might be either repealed or so altered as to permit the introduction of slaves from the original states or elsewhere into the country of

John Edgar, a native of Ireland, was one of the largest landholders who ever lived in Illinois. At the outbreak of the American Revolution he was a British officer living at Detroit, but becoming implicated in the efforts of his American wife to aid British soldiers in deserting, he was imprisoned. He escaped, and in 1784 settled in Kaskaskia, where his wife joined him two years later, having saved from confiscation some twelve thousand dollars. This made Edgar the rich man of the community. “In

Volumes I.-III. (1817-18) give information of much value concerning European conditions inducing emigration. A few of the notices concern emigration from east to west in the United States. American Register; or, Summary Review of History, Politics, and Literature. Philadelphia. Volume II., 202, 203, 216 (1817), tells of improvements in steamboat navigation. Americans as they are; described in a Tour through the Valley of the Mississippi. London: Hurst, Chance & Co., 1828. vi. + 218 pp. O

The work shows the price at which Pennsylvania public lands sold at the time Illinois was being settled. Allen, J. A. American Bisons, living and extinct. Cambridge, Mass.: Welch, Bigelow, & Co. , 1876. ix.+246 pp. and 12 plates. Carefully done. Tells of the great herds of buffalo early found in Illinois and of their extermination in that region. Allen, William Francis . The Place of the North-West in general History. Pages 92-111 of the author's Essays and Monographs. Boston: Geo. H. El