Kaskaskia - Typical French Settlement

Once the war was over with the British and the land ceded to them, many French settlement in the Old Northwest remained.  Kaskaskia in Illinois country was a town of 2,000, made up mostly of transients, converted Indians and such.  Only 70 permanent families made up the town.  Typical of these French settlements, few settlers were part of the populations.  Traders and Jesuit missionaries preferred it that way, as settlers put restrictions on trade and broke up the mission fields.  There were no Huguenot settlers as these were forbidden by the French to settle anywhere.

Typical towns were not very pretty - two or three dirt streets with clapboard and thatch one-story houses on each side, each with a garden between enclosed in a crude picket fence, and a veranda.  Land was cheap and abundant and the tows reflected that.  Public ordinance regulated the farm's plowing, seeding and reaping.

Occasionally a town stood out from the rest as Kaskaskia did. The well-mannered estate of M. Beauvais, a mill and brewery,  ran with 80 slaves, made him the richest and most important man in Kaskaskia.  Kaskaskia boasted a Jesuit college and a monastery as well.  Church festivals, homecomings and balls were all causes for celebration in Kaskaskia.

Along with farming, hunting and trading were the principal occupations in these French towns.  During 1746 when there was a shortage of food in New Orleans, the Illinois settlers were able to provide "upward of 800,000 weight of flour."  Luxury items like sugar, indigo, and cotton were paid for with furs, hides, tallow and beeswax.  Money did not exist, and bartering was the way of commerce.

French civilizations in the Mississippi and Illinois country had their own charm.  Kaskaskia lay in the wonderfully fertile, "America Bottom" and was able to keep its independence even under British rule, as did Vincennes further east on the Wabash.  Most French settlements, however were abandoned.  Many inhabitants returned to France, some went to New Orleans, and some dismantled their houses and literally moved them to the west bank of the Mississippi and settled in towns there.  One such town settled in this way was St. Louis.

Next time...
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Today in Pioneer History: "On January 28, 1855, the first train crosses the Panama isthmus.  The Panama Railway carrying thousands of unruly miners to California via the dense jungles of Central America, dispatches the first train across the Isthmus of Panama.

The First Frontiers of Missions

Spain began establishing missions among the Indians by men of religion in the 1500s.  These Franciscan friars learned the native tongue,  began spreading the Word of God, and opened the way
for Spanish power in North America.

In the 1598, missionaries joined soldiers and founded the village of San Juan in the Rio Grande Valley (present day New Mexico).  These mission villages spread into modern day Texas, Arizona and California.

By 1650 there were missions stretching from southern Florida northward to the Savannah River and westward, ministering to 26,000 Indians.

The mission frontier gave Spain a foothold in southern and southwestern North American before other colonizing powers brought challenges to the Spanish influence.

Next time...France gets curious

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Today in Pioneer History: On  August 3, 1492,  Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sets sail from the Spanish port of Palos, in command of three ships—the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina—on a journey to find a western sea route to China, India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia.