French Fort History - Fort Kaskaskia (1733-1766)
First erected as a rough wooden stockade by the French in 1733 and known as the "Fort of the Kaskasquias." A more substantial fortification was built in 1759 by the French during the French & Indian War, including a heavy stockade with four blockhouses at the corners. This incarnation of the fort was named Fort Kaskaskia, and it remained until it was destroyed in 1766 by the citizens of Kaskaskia to prevent British occupation.
In 1772, the British were forced to leave their headquarters at Fort de Chartres because it was eroding into the Mississippi River, and they chose to fortify the old Jesuit 1703 stone-built French Seminary at Kaskaskia. Named "Fort Gage" in honor of General Thomas Gage. The British occupied the area until they were ordered to withdraw to Fort Detroit in 1776.
sidebar
The word "Mississippi" comes from the Ojibwe Indian Tribe (Algonquian language family) word "Messipi" or "misi-ziibi," which means "Great River" or "Gathering of Waters." French explorers, hearing the Ojibwe word for the river, recorded it in their own language with a similar pronunciation. The Potawatomi (Algonquian language family) pronounced "Mississippi" as the French said it, "Sinnissippi," which was given the meaning "Rocky Waters."
 |
| View of the Mississippi from the Fort. |
 |
| In the flood of April 1881, the Mississippi divided its channel and broke into the lower Kaskaskia River below this bluff, forming Kaskaskia Island. The historic town of Kaskaskia lay directly in its path and was eventually destroyed. Thus, the role played by Kaskaskia in the great drama of history is closed in tragedy. |
Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.
The town of Kaskaskia still exists as an archaeological site beneath the river floodplain. The Mississippi River broke into the channel of the Kaskaskia River in 1881, following which the river current began destroying the buildings adjacent o the river along the east side of the town. But it did not destroy the buildings farther inland, which were gradually abandoned and buried beneath flood deposited soils. In 2024 a student of mine did a GIS study of the town in which she overlaid historic maps over the modern landscape. This allowed her to identify the home of a French "mixed blood" fur trader and interpreter whose name was contained on an 1830s mao of the town. She went to this location, which is just a farm field today with nothing on the surface, and excavated two test squares. She found nothing until she reached 60 cm beneath the ground surface when she began finding 1830s ceramics, meaning that she had successfully located the home site of the 1830s fur trader. So most of Kaskaskia is still there today, it is just buried.
ReplyDelete