Maps

A white horizontal flag featuring the royal coat of arms of France in the center. The shield is bright blue with three gold fleur-de-lis, topped with a golden royal crown and surrounded by the collar of the Order of the Holy Spirit. Two long, flowing gold ribbons extend outward from behind the crown. The nineteenth-century French Canadians were very aware of the history of New France and the area south of the Great Lakes. New France was established during French exploration in 1543.

A historical map of North America showing the territorial claims of France, Great Britain, and Spain. New France is highlighted in blue, spanning from the Gulf of Mexico through the Great Lakes to Eastern Canada, while British colonies are shown in red along the Atlantic coast.

In 1717, the French crown detached the Illinois country from the Canadian part of New France and placed the area under the Louisiana colony’s jurisdiction. Louisiana, named after King Louis XIV, remained under French control from 1682-1763 and 1800-03. Napoleon Bonaparte (1799-1815) decided to sell Louisiana to the United States in 1803.

The French Canadians were very familiar with the explorations of the Kankakee River by Rene-Robert Cavelier Sieur de la Salle (1643-87). In La Salle’s quest to explore the rivers of the French colony, New France, that flowed into the Mississippi, he and thirty-three men made a portage from the St. Joseph River to a marshy river’s headwaters—in northwest Indiana today. The party continued paddling into the “Great West” with eight canoes and eventually completed the journey from Montreal to the mouth of the Mississippi.

La Salle named the river between the St. Joseph and Illinois Rivers the Seignelay in honor of colonial minister of France. The name was later changed to Theakiki and is now called the Kankakee (Johnson-Bourbonnais, 9). The Potawatomi called the land adjacent to the river “Te-yar-ac-ke” (“wonderful land”). The word “Ky-an-ke-ke” evolved. Some Indian tribes called the land “Te-ok-e-kee” (“wolf”) while some coureurs de bois (“runners of the woods”) used the name “Quin-que-que” (Richard, 1).

The Union Jack flag of the United Kingdom. In 1763, as a result of the Treaty of Paris which ended the Great War for Empire—also known as the French and Indian War—between France and Britain, Quebec became part of British Canada.

Historical map of Canada (The Province of Quebec) in 1774, showing the province's expanded territory including the Great Lakes region, Labrador, and the boundaries bordering the Thirteen British Colonies and Rupert’s Land. In 1774, Quebec Province stretched south of the Great Lakes to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

The Betsy Ross flag, featuring 13 white stars arranged in a circle on a blue canton and 13 alternating red and white stripes After the American Revolution ended British control of the area from the Allegany Mountains to the Mississippi, the new United States of America moved its borders west.

Historical map of the 1787 Northwest Territory. A sidebar lists future statehood dates: Ohio 1803, Indiana 1816, Illinois 1818, Michigan 1837, Wisconsin 1848, and Minnesota 1858. It shows the territory bordering the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River, and the Ohio River. The area north of the Ohio River to the Mississippi River was administered as the Northwest Territory.

By 1817, the American Fur Company (headquartered in Astor, New York with a recruiting station in Montreal) employed nineteen-year-old Quebecois Noel LeVasseur (1799-1879)—along with friends Dominique Bray and Henri Boucher, and fifteen-year-old Makinaweon Gurdon Hubbard (1802-86).

Hand-drawn map titled Kankakee Frontier (1832-1848) showing local landmarks like Bourbonnais Grove, Soldier Creek, and the Kankakee River. The map includes a numbered legend for 14 historical sites, including LeVasseur’s Trading Post and various family cabins, and labels four Native American reserves (A-D) granted by the 1832 Treaty of Camp Tippecanoe. LeVasseur and Hubbard were both involved in purchasing native lands and opening the Chicago to Danville Road through the Grand Prairie along the Kankakee River (now Route 102), and the Hubbard Trail which Illinois highway 1 now follows. By the late 1820s and early 1830s, other French Canadians joined Noel LeVasseur in the settlement along the Kankakee. Due to extensive recruitment during the 1830s and ‘40s in Quebec Province, Canada, by pioneer trader Noel LeVasseur, French Canadians learned about the rich farm land along the Kankakee River.

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