About the Colonial Heritage Project

About the Colonial Heritage Project

The colonial legacy of Illinois is a rich and often overlooked chapter in Illinois history. The “Illinois Country” of the 1600s and 1700s was the scene of a remarkable interaction between Native Americans, European explorers, priests, fur traders, merchants, and agricultural families. This resulted in a number of well-established fur trading and farming communities that spanned most of the 18th and 19th centuries. Towns and cities such as Cahokia, Prairie du Rocher and Peoria in Illinois, and Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis in Missouri, trace their origins to the plans of French traders and farmers of the 18th century

Boismenue HouseSuch communities still preserve important archaeological legacies as well. While many of these remains have succumbed to urban development and the movements of the Mississippi River, there survives an archaeological record that offers a direct link to the lives of those who were a part of French Illinois.

The Colonial Heritage Program at ISAS is built upon a foundation of scholarly research that began in the 1940s, with excavations conducted by University of Chicago at the Starved Rock locale on the Illinois River. These efforts were followed by research conducted by Dr. Margaret Kimball Brown at a number of colonial-context sites across Illinois during the 1970s. In the 1980s, Dr. John Walthall introduced colonial studies into the cultural resource management programs conducted for the Illinois Department of Transportation. ISAS now integrates research-based investigations with those conducted for the Department of Transportation.

The CHP has conducted a number of small-scale, research-based archaeological excavations in the “French Colonial District” of southwestern Illinois. Most recently, this has included investigations at several sites within the village of Cahokia (established in 1699), as well as work at Fort de Chartres, established in 1733.

At Home in the Country

The results of the 2006-2009 research investigations were presented in the summary volume At Home in the Illinois Country.This was the first in a series of richly-illustrated publications designed to serve as standard reference works for the archaeological heritage of colonial Illinois.

Following excavations and publications, a number of outreach-based programs are intended to introduce the results of our research to the general public, as well as to members of the descendant communities in which many of these archaeological remains are found.