The Grand Village of the Illinois, also called Old Kaskaskia Village, is a site significant for being the best documented historic Native American village in the Illinois River valley. It was a large agricultural and trading village of Native Americans of the Illinois confederacy, located on the north bank of the Illinois River near the present town of Utica, Illinois. French explorers Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette came across it in 1673. The Kaskaskia, a tribe of the Illiniwek people (and later, other Illiniwek tribes) lived in the village. It grew rapidly after a French mission and fur trading post (see, Illinois Country) were established there in 1675, to a population of about 6,000 people in about 460 houses.[3] Around 1691 the Kaskaskia and other Illiniwek moved further south, abandoning the site due to pressure from an Iroquois invasion from the northeast.[3]
The historic site is now owned by the U.S. state of Illinois. In the 1940s, historian Sarah Tucker of the University of Chicago was able to pinpoint the probable location of the village based on the historical record. The university and the Illinois State Museum conducted archaeological excavations and confirmed Tucker's research, finding substantial evidence of the village. The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964.[2]
A prominent local landmark, Starved Rock, stands on the south bank of the river directly opposite the Grand Village site. Explorer La Salle founded a fort there to be near this village. Starved Rock is also a National Historic Landmark and is included in Starved Rock State Park.
Archeological evidence indicates that the Illini of the Grand Village were well adapted to their environment. They grew corn, beans, and squash in the rich alluvial soil. In 1673, Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet visited the village, which at that time contained approximately 1,000 people. The French were returning from their expedition to chart the Mississippi River. Although terminally ill, Marquette returned to the Grand Village in early 1675 to celebrate Mass, and founded the mission of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin.[4][5] The French called the village both the Grand Village du Kaskaskia and La Vantum.
Around this time the town grew to perhaps the most populous Native American settlement north of Mexico. According to a theory by historian, Robert Morrissey, the Illinois Confederation Indians were adept at exploiting their location in the ecotone between the forests of the east and the prairies of the west – a controlling point for trade between east and west, as well as, rich with diverse hunting, farming, and resource habitats.[6]
The Native Americans of the Eastern Woodland culture were severely affected by epidemic infectious diseases brought to North America from Europe, as they had no natural immunity. In addition, the introduction of guns increased the fatalities in intertribal conflicts. The fur trade became a source of competition and conflict between tribes. Members of the Illini Confederacy appear to have responded to increasing pressures by banding together. Reports from La Salle and others in the 1680s indicate that the Grand Village of the Illini temporarily increased in size during that decade to 400 cabins housing as many as 6,000 people. This village proved to be unsustainable in size. La Salle and Henri de Tonti also established Fort Saint Louis on the butte now called Starved Rock across the river, where a village near the rock's base called Hotel Plaza developed.
The inhabitants of the Grand Village largely dispersed under pressure from invading Iroquois bands (see, Beaver Wars). Many likely moved to the regions around Peoria (see, Fort Pimiteoui), Cahokia, and Kaskaskia, Illinois. These three towns were named after constituent tribes of the Illinois Confederacy.
A 2022 article[7] argues the site of the Grand Village of the Illinois, as referred to by the early European explorers, was on the north side of the Sangamon River about 3 miles east of Chandlerville[7]: 54 and that the site near Starved Rock was a seasonal farming village.[7]: 34 (It also argues the lake referred to as Pimiteoui was not Peoria Lake but instead that near Beardstown[7]: 36 and places Fort Crevecoeur near there as well.[7]: 41 ) References are made to the journals and maps of the explorers and to the original plats of Illinois drawn in the early 1800s, before the rivers had been altered. (The Sangamon has since been channeled.)
Included was La Salle's description of the Grand Village. It was nearly 3 miles long and sited between the river and its bluff, about 3/4 mile in depth, and "consists of nothing but huts roofed with mats... without any enclosure or entrenchment."[7]: 54 Based on two original sources, the village had several hundred huts and thousands of inhabitants.[7]: 48–50
Later English speaking European pioneers did not have a clear idea what had happened to the people of the Grand Village. After the villagers dispersed, a tale was repeated in local folklore that members of the Illini Confederacy had been pinned by tribal enemies to a last stand atop Starved Rock. Hopelessly surrounded, the brave villagers refused to surrender and supposedly perished of starvation. It was said that this was how "Starved Rock" got its name.
In one tale, attributed to the French and Indians, the explorer Henri de Tonti cached a hoard of gold on or near the canyons and bluffs of Starved Rock to secrete it from a French Canadian governor who had dismissed him. Later in 1704 when he was dying of yellow fever, Tonti described the treasure's location to the priest who was giving him last rites. As the story goes, the priest mentioned this revelation to third parties, but did not describe the secret location, and this key piece of information was lost when the priest died in an Illinois River canoe accident.
Another narrative centers on the death, in 1769, of Pontiac at the hands of an unnamed member of the Illini Confederacy. According to this story, the Pottawatomi, who were closely allied to Pontiac's kinfolk, made war on the Illini, forcing many of them to take refuge on the bluff that would become known as "Starved Rock." The Illini supposedly starved as their blufftop refuge was besieged.
The site of the Grand Village of the Illinois was acquired by the state of Illinois in 1991[8] as a non-operating site of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. As of 2023, it is not open to the public.
The Zimmerman site (Ls-13) is an archaeological site located on the Illinois River across from Starved Rock, in the spot where the Grand Village of the Kaskaskia (aka Grand Village of the Illinois) once stood. It is a multi-component site representing prehistoric and early historic periods.[9][10]
The environment around the Zimmerman site was predominantly prairie in the prehistoric period. The bluff extending along both sides of the Illinois River was an oak forest and the bottomlands supported vegetation tolerant of wetlands such as willow, maple, ash and cottonwood.[10]
Early French explorers Joliet, Marquette, Allouez and Tonti were present at the Grand Village of Kaskaskia between 1673 and 1680. The Kaskaskia were a subdivision of the Illiniwek Confederacy. Other Illiniwek groups also had a presence at the site, most notably the Peoria, Tapouaro and Coiracoentanon. Later, other tribes such as the Miami and Shawnee were present at the site. In the fall of 1680 the village was burned down by an Iroquois war party and abandoned.[9]
In the 1940s, Sara Jones Tucker of the University of Chicago initiated a project to determine the exact location of the Kaskaskia village site by reviewing the early French records. As a result of these efforts, the Zimmerman site was located.[9]
In 1947 the site was excavated under the auspices of the Illinois State Museum and the University of Chicago. Four grids were established: A, B, C and D.[9] From 1970-1972 further excavations were conducted under the auspices of the LaSalle County Historical Society in Utica, Illinois. The later excavations focused on revisiting Grids A and B to obtain clarifications on some of the research problems identified in the initial project.[10]
Excavations at the site yielded Prehistoric and historic artifacts, house structures, pit features, burials, animal bone and plant remains.[9][10]
Several Prehistoric and Historic components were identified at the site:[9][10]
The 1947 excavations also reported a tentative “Historic Heally” Complex that represented an extension of the Heally Complex into the early Historic period.[9] However the 1970-72 investigations revealed that there was not enough evidence for a separate complex and that most of the Historic Heally was in fact part of the Danner Complex.[10]
Two structures was defined in Grid C, both affiliated with the Heally Complex. The first is House C-3, a double-walled, roughly rectangular structure measuring 20x25 feet. It had 2 outer rows of posts and an inner row presumably supporting a bench. It contained 2 fire pits and 3 storage/refuse pits.[9]
Houses C-8 and C-13 are overlapping, wall-trench rectangular pit houses, each measuring approximately 20x20 feet. These structures also apparently had a bench structure based on the post mold pattern. The excavators felt that these structures were semi-subterranean and perhaps covered with sod, Charcoal in some of the post molds implies that both structures were burned.[9]
A large number of post molds present in Grid C implied the existence of additional houses, but none could be successfully delineated.[9]
The houses at Zimmerman resemble houses observed at the nearby Fisher site. They contrast with the houses found at two Huber sites, Oak Forest and Anker, which were elongated oval in shape.[9][11][12][13]
Several rock piles were noted in the Danner Complex that the excavators felt could have been sweat lodge areas.[9]
In 1947, 43 storage/refuse features and 15 roasting pit features were excavated. Each type was subdivided into variants based on depth and shape. It was felt that the storage/refuse pits started out as storage pits to keep foods fresh longer; as the food in them soured, they then were used as refuse pits while fresh storage pits were dug elsewhere. They contained culturally rich fill with potsherds, stone tool debris, animal bone, plant remains, etc.
Some of the roasting pits related to the Danner Complex appear to correspond to what has ethnographically been described as “macopin roasting pits” by the early French explorers Deliette and LaSalle. The macopins are apparently tubers from a species of water lily, perhaps the American Lotus (Nelumbo lutea).[9] Tubers of Nelumbo lutea have been recovered from similar roasting pits at the Elam[14] and Schwerdt[15][16] sites on the Kalamazoo River in western Michigan; and tubers of the white water lily (Nymphaea tuberosa) have been recovered from roasting pits at the Griesmer site in northwestern Indiana.[17] This particular cooking technique may have been used prehistorically for several species of similar water lilies, or other similar root plants. No tubers were specifically recovered from the Zimmerman site, however.
20 burials were excavated in 1947, of which few had any grave goods and only 4 were prehistoric.[9] An additional 30 burials were excavated in 1970–72, including an infant burial with a spiked tomahawk and a bundle burial with a complete compass. Both of these artifacts were of European manufacture.[10]
Two different burial patterns were noted; a primary interment with extended burials, and secondary reburials or bundle burials (aka ossuaries). The historic Illiniwek were observed to use both burial methods.[10]
