Introduction to History of Illinois
At least 10,000 years ago, prehistoric people came to what is now Illinois. Archeological excavations at the Koster Site in the lower Illinois River valley have revealed evidence of almost continuous habitation there by advanced Indian cultures from about 8000 B.C. to 1200 A.D. The height of Indian civilization in Illinois was the Middle Mississippian culture, which flourished from 900 A.D. to about the late 15th century. The Indians of this period were mound builders who lived along the Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio, and Wabash rivers. When Europeans first came in the 17th century, the area was inhabited by primitive, seminomadic Indians called the Illinois or Illiniwek.
Important dates in Illinois1673 Louis Jolliet of Canada and Jacques Marquette of France were probably the first Europeans in Illinois.1699 French priests founded a settlement in Cahokia, the oldest town in Illinois.1717 Illinois became part of the French colony of Louisiana.1763 France included Illinois in the territory it ceded to Britain after the French and Indian War.1778 George Rogers Clark's forces captured Cahokia and Kaskaskia during the Revolutionary War. The Illinois region became a county of Virginia.1783 The Illinois region became part of the United States under the treaty ending the Revolutionary War.1784 Virginia gave up its claim to Illinois to the national government.1787 Congress made Illinois part of the Northwest Territory.1800 Illinois became part of the Indiana Territory.1809 Congress made Illinois a territory.1818 Illinois became the 21st state on December 3.1818 Nathaniel Pope, the Illinois territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress, succeeded in having the state’s northern border extended to its present position.1848 The completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal provided a water connection between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley.1858 Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas debated throughout Illinois in their senatorial campaigns.1871 The Chicago Fire destroyed much of the city.1886 Discontent among laborers led to the Haymarket Riot in Chicago.1893 The World’s Columbian Exposition, an elaborate fair held in Chicago, brought attention to the city’s accomplishments.1900 The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal was completed, making the Chicago River flow backward.1920's Illinois built a network of hard-surfaced roads.1933-1934 The Century of Progress Exposition was held in Chicago.1942 Scientists at the University of Chicago controlled an atomic chain reaction for the first time.1960 One of the country's largest nuclear reactors was completed at Morris.1965 A panel of federal and state judges reapportioned the state Senate. A special commission reapportioned the state House of Representatives.1969 Illinois adopted individual and corporate income taxes.1970 Illinois voters approved a new constitution, which went into effect July 1, 1971.1986 James R. Thompson became the first Illinois governor to be elected to a fourth term.1993 Floods caused heavy damage in Illinois.2005 Barack Obama of Illinois became the only African American in the U.S. Senate.European Exploration and Settlement
The Illinois country was first explored by the French, in the 1670's. Returning from an exploration of the Mississippi River in 1673, Father Jacques Marquette and the explorer Louis Joliet paddled up the Illinois River, a tributary of the Mississippi, and discovered the Chicago portage between the Illinois and the Great Lakes. The Sieur de La Salle and Henri de Tonti later also explored the Illinois country. They built Fort Crèvecoeur just below Lake Peoria in 1680 and Fort St. Louis at Starved Rock on the Illinois River in 1682. Tonti later moved Fort St. Louis to Lake Peoria and brought in French settlers.
Because of attacks by Iroquois Indians, the French and Illinois Indian communities moved down the river to the rich bottom lands on the east side of the Mississippi. Settlements were founded at Cahokia in 1699 and at Kaskaskia in 1703. The Illinois area became part of the French province of Louisiana in 1717. In 1720 construction of Fort de Chartres near Kaskaskia was completed; it became the seat of government in Illinois.
In 1763, as a result of the French and Indian War, the territory passed to the control of Great Britain. During the Revolutionary War, it was seized for the United States by troops commanded by George Rogers Clark, in 1778. Virginia, which had sent out the Clark expedition, claimed all the territory northwest of the Ohio River, including Illinois. Virginia relinquished its territorial claims to the federal government in 1784. The Ordinance of 1787 established a government for this region, which was called the Northwest Territory and of which Illinois was a part.
In 1800 Illinois was included in the newly created Indiana Territory. In 1803 U.S. Army troops established Fort Dearborn at the mouth of the Chicago River. Illinois Territory, including the Wisconsin area, was created in 1809, with Kaskaskia as its capital. Territorial population in 1810 was about 12,000. During the War of 1812, Fort Dearborn's garrison was massacred by the Potawatomi Indians, who were allied with the British.
Statehood
Illinois became the 21st state in 1818, with Kaskaskia as its capital and Shadrach Bond as its first governor. At the same time, the Wisconsin region was detached and made a part of Michigan Territory. When Illinois became a state, its population was concentrated almost entirely in the south. In 1820 it totaled about 55,000. That same year, the capital was moved to Vandalia. In the 1820's, the lead mines at Galena, in the northwestern part of the state, began to flourish and stimulated trade in northeastern Illinois, in the village of Chicago, which became a shipping point for goods sent to the East.
An early problem in the new state was the question of slavery. Although Illinois had been prohibited from entering the Union as a slave state under the Ordinance of 1787, most of the early settlers had come from the South, and there was a strong movement to legalize slavery. Antislavery sentiment, however, was also strong. A proposal to call a constitutional convention to legislate the question was defeated by popular vote in 1824.
After the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, thousands of settlers came by water and spread over the northern farm lands. Indian resistance to white encroachment led to the Black Hawk War in 1832, and in 1833 all Indian tribes, including the Potawatomi, Winnebago, Ottawa, and Chippewa, were moved west of the Mississippi. With the removal of the Indians, the Chicago area began to grow rapidly. In 1839, as the north became settled, the capital was moved to Springfield, which was more centrally located. The population at this time was about 476,000.
Nauvoo, on the Mississippi River, was settled by the Mormons when they were driven from Missouri in 1839. Welcomed in Illinois, Mormon leader Joseph Smith was given a charter that made his city almost independent of state government. Soon, however, Smith's doctrine of polygamy outraged the citizens of neighboring communities. In 1844 Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were arrested and taken to nearby Carthage, where a mob attacked the jail and killed them. In 1846 Nauvoo was deserted by the Mormons, who left Illinois for Utah.
Construction of the Illinois-Michigan Canal (1836–48) and introduction of railways in 1838 soon made Chicago the hub of midcontinent transportation and commerce. Coal mining grew with the railways, and industry sprang up throughout the state. In a decade population doubled, from 851,000 in 1850 to 1,712,000 in 1860.
Civil War and After
There was conflicting sentiment on slavery in Illinois up to the time of the Civil War. Debates on the slavery question between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas during the 1858 election campaign for United States senator attracted nationwide attention and helped to propel Lincoln to the Presidency in 1860. During the Civil War, the state supplied more than 250,000 men to the Union army, including two noted generals—Ulysses S. Grant, later President, and John A. Logan.
After the war, Illinois became a major industrial state, and Chicago a leading industrial city. Farm-implement manufacture, in which John Deere and Cyrus McCormick were prominent figures, and the Chicago meat-packing industry, led by Philip D. Armour and Gustavus F. Swift, were important in the state's economic development.
With the growth of industry and the development of the labor movement, Chicago became the scene of much conflict, notably the Haymarket riot of 1886 and the Pullman strike of 1894. Meanwhile, in 1892 a farm-labor coalition of voters had elected Democrat John P. Atlgeld governor, and his administration enacted many social reforms. 1893–97.
Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The fire in Chicago, northern Illinois, destroyed much of the city and left about 90,000 people homeless.Modern Development
Progressive legislation continued to be enacted in the early 1900's under Republican governors. Among the laws passed were those regulating child labor, civil service, working hours for women, and coal-mine safety. After World War I, construction was begun on a statewide system of paved roads and on the Illinois Waterway, connecting Lake Michigan with the Mississippi. As the industrial north and fertile central section prospered, southern Illinois suffered an economic decline, partly because the demand for soft coal had decreased. After World War II, a program was undertaken to industrialize the area. In the 1950's, land values increased in southern Illinois as a result of improved farming methods and rising demand for oil, which had been discovered in the region prior to the war.
During the 1950's and 1960's, the stockyards were closed after it had become too costly to ship livestock as far east as Chicago. Also, the number of farms decreased. Nevertheless, Illinois remained one of the leading states in agricultural production. During the late 1960's and early 1970's, racial problems affected most of the state's large cities as the black urban population increased.
The state's industrial and population growth of the 1960's led Illinois to thrive through the 1980's, but not without consequences. Chicago continued to be a hub of activity, and high-technology industries thrived, but air and water pollution led to a voter-approved $750 million bond issue in 1970 to fight those problems, and higher taxes were needed to pay for more public services.
A new constitution, effective July 1, 1971, modernized the government. To gain additional revenue, a state-run lottery was introduced in 1974 and riverboat gambling was legalized in 1990. In the summer of 1993, severe flooding along the Mississippi caused widespread damage.
Governor George Ryan, disturbed by the state's record of wrongful death-penalty convictions, suspended the penalty indefinitely. Ryan's suspension followed legislative reviews of the punishment system and his own reduction of the punishments of 167 prisoners awaiting execution. Governor Rod Blagojevich continued Ryan's moratorium when his term began in 2003 while he heavily reformed the capital punishment system.