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People Before Us
People have lived in
the Heritage Corridor for at least 10,000 years. Although little is
known about the first Native Americans who lived here, we do know that
by 2,000 years ago they had developed elaborate civilizations. By 1700
the rapid spread of large-scale pioneer settlements seriously
jeopardized Indian cultures. Tribes forced from their homelands in the
eastern part of the U.S. encroached on the territories of Midwestern
tribes, resulting in wars and the disruption of tribal traditions. The
Black Hawk War of 1832 ended in defeat for a mixed band of Indians, and
as a result the federal government implemented its policy of removing
all Native Americans from Illinois. The tribes were forced to sign the
Treaty of Chicago in 1833 and gave up their territories in exchange for
lands west of the Mississippi River.
Remnants of the Indian
tribes that once inhabited northern Illinois can be found in Wisconsin,
Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Michigan, and Indiana. Today over 20,000 Native
Americans live in Chicago alone, but most are not related to the tribes
that once held sway here.
The French also had a
hand in shaping our culture. French Canadian fur trappers and
missionaries began to arrive in the Midwest in the late 1600s. Many
Frenchmen intermarried with the Native Americans and some adopted their
customs. Two of the most famous Frenchmen in Illinois were Louis Jolliet
and Father Jacques Marquette. In 1673, following the suggestion of
Native Americans who had long known of the route, they traveled from the
Illinois River to the Chicago River and on to Lake Michigan. Jolliet was
the first, but by no means the last, to suggest that a canal be built to
connect Lake Michigan and the waters that flowed to the Mississippi
River.
The English were also a
presence in northern Illinois. The Kinzies, early Chicago's "first
family," were among the earliest English traders at Fort Dearborn. By
1850 the English were an important presence in La Salle and Grundy
Counties. Many were farmers, and by the 1860s others had moved into
mining.
Towns along the I&M
National Heritage Corridor tell the story of the many immigrant groups
who came to live and work in the region. The people who came to Illinois
in the early nineteenth century were either recent immigrants or
migrants from the eastern part of the US. In either case, they
constituted a special breed, willing to start fresh, take any job, and
work hard in a largely undeveloped place. They shared the American dream
of freedom and economic prosperity.
The Irish, German, and
Scandinavians were among the earliest groups to make the bold choice of
living on the prairie frontier. These groups all worked on the
construction of the I&M Canal. They transplanted their culture as best
they could, but many of the amenities that they had grown accustomed to
were not available in the Midwest.
The Irish began
arriving in northern Illinois in large numbers in 1836, to work on the
I&M Canal. They continued to pour into the area during the Great Potato
Famine of 1845-7, during which time the population of Ireland decreased
by over two million people through death and emigration. After 1848 many
Irish moved to the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago, where they worked
in meat-packing plants and brickyards. Other Irish spread throughout
northern Illinois, often becoming farmers in canal towns.
From 1860-1920 hundreds
of thousands of immigrants arrived in the United States. Most were from
southern and eastern Europe. Poles, Italians, Czechs, Greeks, Slovaks,
Russians, Hungarians, Lithuanians, and Slovenians all flocked to the
Corridor, taking jobs in a variety of industries. The tradition of
closely-knit ethnic neighborhoods still characterizes many communities
in the corridor today.
African Americans have
lived in northern Illinois since the earliest days of the fur trade. The
earliest African American in the corridor was Jean Baptiste Point du
Sable, the first known person to settle in what is now Chicago. In the
early nineteenth century, portions of the Heritage Corridor were stops
on the Underground Railroad. This informal network of individuals
ferried blacks to freedom in the North. One of the stops was the
American House Hotel in Joliet. The first blacks to migrate to the
region in large numbers arrived to work on the construction of the
Sanitary and Ship Canal between 1892 and 1900, and migration from the
south increased dramatically during the first half of the twentieth
century.
Today, the Chicago-area
and surrounding communities have become even more ethnically diverse.
Immigrants from all over the world are attracted to the jobs and quality
of life here. In recent years Illinois has seen an influx of people from
Asian countries such as Korea, India, and Japan. In addition,
immigration from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Cuba have added to the rich
ethnic mix of the canal region.
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