How the City of Newton and Jasper County, Illinois, got their names.

The City of Newton, Illinois.
Sergeant John Newton (1755–1780) was a soldier of the American Revolutionary War who was popularized by Mason Locke Weems, better known as Parson Weems (an American book agent and author who wrote the first biography of George Washington immediately after his death) in his school books in the early 19th century. Newton served under Brigadier General Francis Marion, the famous "Swamp Fox." Today Newton appears to have been a very minor figure. However, place names across the United States demonstrate his former fame. He is considered one of the popular fictionalized heroic enlisted men of the American Revolution.

            1875 map of Jasper County, Illinois and the County Seat of Newton.

Parson Weems' has Sgt. Newton bravely save a group of American prisoners from execution by capturing their British guards at the 1779 Siege of Savannah. However, no contemporary account of this rescue exist, and the only source is the very unreliable Parson Weems. In fact, according to Lieutenant Colonel Peter Horry, who took part in the campaign, "Newton was a thief and a villain"

Sgt. Newton's tale is similar to the true story of Sgt. William Jasper, who was a genuine hero but was exaggerated by Weems. 

The County of Jasper, Illinois.
Sergeant William Jasper (1750-1779)was called to Sullivan's Island to help protect Charles Towne Harbor. There he served under Colonel William Moultrie, who was in charge of the defense of Charleston against the British Navy. A few days before the British were due to arrive, Colonel Moultrie decided to build a fort to protect the harbor. His officers were sent local plantation owners, to borrow their slaves to help with the creation of the fort. Soldiers, slaves, and volunteers banded together to chop down palmettos and use them in its construction.

Initially called Fort Sullivan, some time after the battle the fort was renamed to Fort Moultrie. The British arrived before the fort was finished, its whole back remaining incomplete. The Moultrie flag was raised over the structure, and a ten-hour siege began.

Low on ammunition, the 2nd South Carolina Regiment only fired when ships closed in on the fort. The flag, designed by Moultrie himself at the behest of the colonial government, was shot down, and fell to the bottom of the ditch on the outside of the fort. Leaping from an embrasure, Jasper recovered the flag, which he tied to a sponge staff and replaced on the parapet, where he supported it until a permanent flag staff had been procured and installed. With this rallying point, the colonists held out until sunset, when the British retreated. They did not succeed in taking Charleston until several years later.

Because of Jasper's heroism, Governor John Rutledge presented him with his personal sword, and offered him a lieutenant's commission. He did not accept the offer to become an officer, saying that he would only be an embarrassment since he could neither read nor write. He was also presented with two silk flags by Mrs. Susannah Elliott.

Data:
Newton is the largest, oldest and only city (although several there are villages) in Jasper County. Because of its favorable location within the county, it was named county seat in 1835. Jasper County was formed in 1831 out of Clay and Crawford Counties and approved on December 19, 1834.

Several states have a Newton and Jasper county adjacent to each other, as though they were regarded as a pair. Several other states have a Jasper County with a county seat of Newton, or vice versa. There are twelve Jasper cities/towns and five Jasper counties; fourteen Newton cities/towns and four Newton counties that are located in the United States. 

Surely, these men were widely remembered.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Women and their place in The Illinois Confederacy.

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In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM introduces present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Presentism is a form of cultural bias that creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. Historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present fact-based and well-researched articles.

Facts don't require one's approval or acceptance.

I present [PG-13] articles without regard to race, color, political party, or religious beliefs, including Atheism, national origin, citizenship status, gender, LGBTQ+ status, disability, military status, or educational level. What I present are facts — NOT Alternative Facts — about the subject. You won't find articles or readers' comments that spread rumors, lies, hateful statements, and people instigating arguments or fights.

FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY

When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:

• The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.

Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:

• "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
• "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
• "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM —

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.

 

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During the last years of the seventeenth century and the early decades of the eighteenth century, the French reported that Illiniwek men spoke disparagingly when they referred to women; the Europeans even concluded that Illiniwek women were the slaves of the men. Indian women have been referred to as the "Hidden Half" because the documentary records provided a cloudy view of the female arena. The gender roles and status issues concerning Illiniwek women, however, have been made reasonably clear by Pierre Delliette, a nephew of LaSalle's lieutenant, Henri Tonti, other French officials, and various Jesuit priests. The considerable significance of women to the Illiniwek Indian tribe comes into focus by examining their role, power, and status.

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The Illinois,  (aka Illiniwek or Illini) is pronounced as plural: (The Illinois') were a Confederacy of Indian tribes consisting of the Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Peoria, Tamarais (Tamaroa, Tamarois), Moingwena, Mitchagamie (Michigamea), Chepoussa, Chinkoa, Coiracoentanon, Espeminkia, Maroa, and Tapouara tribes that were of the Algonquin family. They spoke Iroquoian languages. The Illinois called themselves "Ireniouaki" (the French word was Ilinwe)..  The village, La Vantum, aka Grand Village, was near today's Utica, Illinois.

Women and their place in the Illiniwek Indian tribe.

An investigation of absolute gender boundaries, complementary or secondary functions, and parity functions reveals the female role. Absolute boundaries, for example, clearly separated the gender functions. Women did not use male weapons, bows, and arrows; did not engage in raiding war or the hunt; did not use the male accent; did not eat before or with the men; did not attend councils; did not dance in such ceremonies as the calumet dance or "the discovery" at funerals for influential men; did not injure unfaithful husbands or expel them from home; did not wear male clothing, tattoos, or hairstyles; did not marry more than one spouse at a time; did not live in the house with men during menstruation or childbirth; did not bury other women with great ceremony; and did not torture prisoners until after men had finished. Women, however, did function effectively in a system their society reserved for them.

The labor requirements of the tribe's economic system encouraged the development of complementary or supportive gender roles. Men hunted and fished and roamed far from their villages, and the women gardened and gathered fruits and nuts and remained close to their homes. Europeans saw Illiniwek men as "all gentlemen" because they did no physical labor in their villages. Instead, they danced, gambled, feasted, engaged in religious activities, and manufactured bows and arrows. They earned status by becoming superior warriors and hunters-activities, which required great strength and endurance.

On the other hand, women raised children, gathered wood, tended their homes, tilled fields, prepared food, and dressed skins. They did not work harder than men, although the French thought they did, and they did not even work as hard as European colonial women. The tribe's very survival, nevertheless, actually depended on female labor during those times when hunters were unsuccessful.

Women served in secondary rather than complementary gender roles in such activities as warfare, hunting, and certain ceremonies usually associated with men. Because females were denied access to bows and arrows, for example, they did not participate in raids, the military expeditions of limited size which traveled stealthily and ambushed individuals or small groups of the enemy. Armed with clubs, however, women joined men in joint warfare expeditions in which hundreds of participants might noisily travel hundreds of miles to attack enemy villages.

Females also engaged in communal hunting, but weapons restrictions limited their participation here, too. The generosity requirements the culture placed on men, which obligated them to surrender possessions upon request, may explain why women would travel to the site of the hunter's kill and then skin, butcher, and carry the meat back to the village. Even during communal buffalo hunts, limited customs women to preparing and transporting the meat.

Several ceremonies, including a game of Lacrosse and the calumet dance, also included women as secondary performers. The summer communal buffalo hunt began with a ritual game of Lacrosse, but only some women played because the game was physical and dangerous. These female participants played the game in a defensive capacity. The women's part was also limited in the peace and recognition ceremony known as the calumet dance. Women with fine voices sang in choruses, including men, during the calumet dance, but they did not dance.

Kaskaskia Tribe of the Illiniwek.

Illiniwek women enjoyed parity with men in one of the most important venues, access to supernatural power. Young girls sought, as did boys, the protection of a manitou (the "essence of supernatural power" represented by a bird, buffalo, or other animals) by participating in a vision quest or dream-fast exercise. Women also became shamans, or priests and healers, and several times each year, both female and male shamans sponsored a public ceremony. The priesthood members demonstrated their killing and curing powers during the rites. Shamans were obeyed as agents of supernatural power who could cause death because the Illiniwek feared them. The power of female shamans extended to the entire community.

Women clearly exercised power within the female sphere of activity. For example, women-led age groups of females are responsible for fulfilling such customs as burying females. Father Jacques Gravier, a Jesuit priest, referred to "Those who govern the young women and the grown girls..." While women did not ordinarily wield leadership in arenas reserved for men and therefore did not become chiefs, the sources identify one female civil chief for a small winter village. Her position, however, reflected the hunting successes of her male relatives.

The case of this female chief suggests that women generally enjoyed some standing but little real power beyond their own realm. It "is implausible to argue that women may have less visible prestige but an equal claim on dominance," noted anthropologist Nancy Datan, "as it must also be posited that women are content with power so subtle that its effects are difficult to detect.

It is far more parsimonious," she concluded, "though less pleasing, to concede that women have unequal access to power." While women did wield authority in their own sphere, their power in the tribe was simply not equal to that of men.

Several criteria reflected their power and established the status of Indian women: division of labor, plural marriage, marriage gift exchange, divorce, motherhood, and control over sexual activity. The complementary nature of Illiniwek work roles, where women did not hunt and men did not gather, required that everyone marry. A man's skill as a hunter determined the number of wives he might take, but his secondary wives were the first wife's sisters, nieces, and aunts; a woman did not have more than one husband at a time. Divorce was easily arranged when one or both partners agreed to live apart, but often couples worked through their problems for the sake of their children. A divorced man whose partner was blameless could expect retaliation from the members of the woman's clan if he took a replacement wife from another clan. While men and women shared the right to divorce, both parties were constrained by children and clan privileges.

Although the French saw them as promiscuous, the Illiniwek did subscribe to simple chastity. Young women were not supposed to talk with men to maintain their status as potential spouses, but many did engage in premarital sexual activity. A first wife outranked secondary wives, and the courtship process to select a first wife was indirect and most important. An absent suitor's father or uncle would lead his female relatives loaded with valuable gifts to the prospective bride's home. These gifts included kettles, guns, skins, meat, "some cloth, and sometimes a slave..."

The marriage gifts would be returned if the girl protested or if her parents or brother objected to the union. Negotiations could involve as many as three trips- each with more valuable gifts from the suitor's family. When a bride accepted a suitor, she and her relatives would travel to the groom's home with their own gifts. Although men did conduct the formal negotiations, the bride and her mother played a prominent role in the decision. The value of the marriage gift exchange delayed and frustrated poor suitors, and illustrating the value of a first wife, a husband continued to send presents to his wife's brother even after marriage. The marriage began without ceremony when the bride and groom agreed to live together.

Even married women did not control their sexual activities because their brothers, motivated by gifts, could force them into extramarital relationships. Husbands who punished or killed unfaithful wives or their lovers were often attacked by the families of the injured parties. A feud might be averted only if husbands were "to cover the dead" by providing presents to the grieving families.

Women did punish men who violated clan marriage rights, and these men accepted the discipline without retaliating. As with divorce, a widower who took another bride too quickly from a different clan could find his possessions destroyed by the female members of the original wife's family. The enforcement of clan rights reflected both the economic importance of marriage and the power of women while protecting their sphere.

Much of the female arena revolved around childbirth and child-rearing. Women were not permitted to deliver their babies in their husbands' homes, so delivery took place in the small menstrual huts nearby. New fathers honored new mothers in a ceremonial role reversal: the fathers cleaned the house, shook out the furs, and built a new fire. The Illiniwek loved their children, but the birth rate and infant mortality were low. Having a child elevated the status of a woman to the prestigious position of mother.

Mothers enjoyed complete control over youngsters because men were absent so often, but they also had full responsibility for protecting them from raiders, animals, and accidents. Diapering infants with moss and swaddling them in skins, mothers attended to their chores with infants fastened to their backs on cradleboards. As they matured, mothers encouraged youngsters to develop those skills required for adult success. While boys practiced with their weapons and ran, swam, and wrestled, girls acquired those industrious work habits which might attract desirable husbands. Motherhood involves ensuring the continuity of society.

The role and power available to the men and women in Illiniwek society determined individual status. Men were their society's ceremonial, economic, military, and political leaders. Males who expected to acquire lofty community standing could develop exceptional skills as either warriors or hunters, but the warrior's success outranked that of the hunter. The tribe acknowledged the status of individual achievers with public rituals such as the first-kill feast, the warrior's pounding-the-post ceremony, and elaborate burials. Women were ineligible for the recognition available to men from raiding or hunting.

Males earned an improved position in the community over the years because they had demonstrated their capacity to survive in a most demanding career. The enhanced prestige of this elders-most of whom was shamans-allowed them to eat before others, officiate Lacrosse games, decide the fate of war prisoners, participate in an elder's council for advising chiefs, and serve as town criers. Even with this lofty status, old men worked in the fields with the women, thus implicitly acknowledging the importance of the female contribution to the tribe's welfare.

Women earned status in a system reserved for females that reflected success in the female role. The practice of tattooing women recognized individual proficiency, and men wore tattoos illustrating the weapons employed to acquire military triumphs. It is reasonable to assume that women wore designs representing tools with which they had been successful, such as the spade, the spindle, and the ax. Implements reserved for men-bows and arrows-outranked those utilized by women.

Even though the primary male economic contribution-meat-outranked that of females, the status of women was still substantial because of the quality and quantity of the tribal diet. Without meat, the Illiniwek only thought they were starving, but female subsistence products meant the group would survive. Another factor conferring status might have been female ownership or control of their fields. The evidence for this claim is indirect, such as the female work bees required when women needed to spade up their fields, but, significantly, field ownership is not included in any list of male status criteria.

Europeans developed low opinions of Illiniwek women when they saw them engage in arduous physical labor in their villages. Control over the products of their labor, however, suggests multiple female statuses. The items in the home, those destroyed when clan marriage rights were ignored, were considered the manufacturer's property. In 1772, a Frenchman noticed that "husbands leave to the women to say as to the buying and selling" of such female manufactured trade items as dressed "deer and buffalo skins."

The labor issue is clouded by the question of ownership of the home. Although women manufactured the family home, husbands "owned" or controlled it because it was the product of more than one wife's labor. A divorced wife would have left her former husband's remaining family with a badly damaged dwelling if she had been able to remove her contribution to it. Because women controlled only part of their work product, this labor issue needs to be more to clarify the question of female status.

It is difficult to measure changes in Illiniwek social practices because the tribe endured tremendous population losses after coming into direct contact with the French in 1673; fewer Indians resulted in fewer documents concerning them. However, rather interesting adaptations became observable for several marriage customs. For example, before meeting Europeans, Illiniwek men had become eligible to marry at age twenty-five but married at age thirty; women married at about twenty-five. After completing the French, however, men married before the age of twenty and women before eighteen. This circumstance caused Delliette to report, "The old men (the conservators of tribal traditions) say that the French have corrupted them." The tribe also experienced a decline in husbands taking more than one wife and in the rate of divorce. Finally, another Frenchman declared the number negligible a quarter of a century after Delliette noticed that unfaithful wives were numerous. These modifications indicate that contact with Europeans changed women's roles.

The industrious role and considerable power of Illiniwek women established their high status in the Illiniwek tribe. They attained social standing by bearing and nurturing children, constructing and tending homes, gathering wood and preparing food, dressing skins and tilling fields. They wielded power in their female venue and in their role as shamans. Marriage customs, gift exchange, and divorce options also testified to their lofty position in the tribe. Limits on female activity, however, illustrated the greater power and status of men. Women did enjoy considerable influence and standing in a system reserved for them, but they were ineligible for the higher-status positions available for men.

The subordinate position of females was emphasized in those conventions which prohibited their use of weapons reserved for men, their absence from raiding and the hunt, and the second-class status of their subsistence contributions. However, the most important of the elements limiting female power and status was their lack of control over their own sexual activity.

When men made derogatory comments about women, they declared that the female role was inappropriate. They exhibited the inveterate male habit of gendering male enemies as female or effeminate. Despite the derisive comments of men, however, Illiniwek women understood even if the French did not that, they were the slaves of the men.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Life in Post-Colonial Illinois for French Women and Families.

The American hero, George Rogers Clark, had just seized the French village of Kaskaskia from the British and now turned his sights on Vincennes. Clark appealed to the local French habitants for help. He found support in an unlikely place. With the encouragement of Kaskaskia's women, he had no trouble in finding male recruits eager to join him on his journey. The pivotal town of Vincennes fell to the Americans a short time later. Thanks, in part, to the women of Kaskaskia, Clark emerged victorious once again.

The role of French women in post-Colonial Illinois plays out in small sentences like this. There are very few studies on the women living in the area known as the Illinois Country between the years 1778 and 1818, the year Illinois achieved statehood. Yet French women played an important part in the history, settlement, and development of early Illinois. French settlers had come to the Illinois County in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, migrating south from Canada and north, via the Mississippi River, from lower Louisiana. Through trade and intermarriage, the French cultivated effective working relationships with native tribes. By 1778 French families on both sides of the river dominated the commercial, political, religious, military, and cultural frontier of early Illinois. The regional economic and social foundations constructed by the French were inextricably linked by their extended family networks. French women, in their roles as mothers, daughters, and wives, were crucial players in developing and maintaining these family networks.

In general, a woman's role in society was much more limited than that of a man's. Unlike her brothers, who might go off to boarding school for their education, French girls generally learned at home. Under a mother's tutelage, girls learned the basics of domesticity: washing, sewing, cooking, cleaning, gardening, and the many other tasks that accompanied running a household, including managing slaves. A few girls' schools were established in St. Louis in the early 1800s. There, formal instruction included the study of languages, mathematics, history, poetry, art, music, and even some simple philosophy. However, distance made the schools inaccessible to many girls, and the cost was prohibitive to nearly everyone except the wealthy.

The primary purpose of any girl's education—formal instruction or homeschooling—was to help her catch a husband. Since marriage was considered the societal norm, there were very few other options for women in early Illinois. Women could find work as governesses or teachers. Some women worked as midwives or healers, but generally, these women had been married before. Most of the French women who managed businesses on the Illinois frontier did so as widows who took over their husband's dealings upon his death. A final alternative to marriage was entering a convent, although, before 1833, this required leaving Illinois altogether.

With so few choices, it is not surprising that the women of the American bottom tended to marry in their teens, while their counterparts in Northern New England and the Mid-Atlantic farming communities during this period married between the ages of twenty and twenty-two. Most French women married into multi-family households, which were common on the Illinois frontier, where death often claimed spouses and remarriage was a necessity for survival. Husbands often came with children from previous marriages.

When Angelique Saucier married Pierre Menard in 1806 at age twenty-three, she was only ten years older than her eldest stepdaughter, thirteen-year-old Marie-Odile, one of four surviving offspring from Menard's first marriage. Angelique and Menard went on to have eight children together. In 1798 Nicholas Jarrot married Julie St. Gemme de Beauvais, with whom he had six children. Jarrot's daughter from his first marriage grew up in the family home with the rest of the Jarrot children. Most French homes had multi-family units. Living with many "step-people" and extended family members was common.

Pierre Menard House

Many women of varying ages (mothers, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, etc.) in large French households provided many role models from which girls could learn and pattern their behavior. For example, there was twenty-nine years age difference between Sophie Menard, born in 1822, and her eldest stepsister Marie-Odile, born in 1793. Her second eldest stepsister was twenty years her senior. These women acted as second mothers to Sophie, who, at age seventeen, lost her own. At the same time, large families could bring conflict, living as they did in cramped quarters where both space and privacy were at a premium. The Pierre Menard Home, for example, located just outside Ellis Grove, Illinois and built between 1815 and 1818, measured only 71 x 43 feet. Although large for its day, it contained only three sleeping chambers and housed between ten and sixteen people, not including slaves.

Birth order was an important factor in when a woman could enter the marriage market. Usually, daughters were married off in order from eldest to youngest. If an elder daughter made a good (i.e., lucrative) match, the next in line was not under so much pressure to promote the family's aggrandizement. Moreover, the successful match of the first daughter signaled to the world that the family was up and coming. Oftentimes, a well-matched older sister provided an important entree into society for her younger siblings. If, on the other hand, the first daughter chose a less-than-adequate mate, the pressure intensified upon the next offspring to marry well.

Selecting a husband, however, was no easy task. The choice of a marriage partner was probably one of the most important decisions a woman would make in the early nineteenth century. The right husband offered financial support and physical protection from harm. A husband's good name (or lack thereof) determined a woman's status within the community. If she made the wrong choice—if she selected an abusive husband, a drunk, a lie-about who would not work, or a man of the low regard in the community-her place in life would suffer as well.

Men vastly outnumbered women on the Illinois frontier in the early nineteenth century. Consequently, a young French woman faced a wide variety of men, not always desirable, from which to choose. On the east coast and in more settled areas of America, a woman could rely on a long-established family's good name and reputation when sizing up her potential beaus. But in post-colonial Illinois, very few of the eligible young men came from established families. As the nineteenth century progressed, Americans and Germans migrating from the East began to replace the old French families. How could one know if these mobile, young men, who drifted in from parts and families unknown, whose accents, mannerisms, and even religions were so very different from the local customs, would make good husbands? To help them in their selection of a husband, women turned to family, friends, and their community for assistance. Parents, while not always arranging marriages, still held a great deal of control over their offspring's choice of spouse. Women, in particular, were often very active in the courtship process, arranging events where young people could meet and orchestrating the events to see that only the "right" people mingled together. Thus, while in many cases, a woman was virtually free to choose her own spouse, family and friends made sure that the pool from which she selected was limited and that only suitable partners were considered.

Just as the social elite could close their ranks on one less worthy, they eagerly embraced those they saw beneficial to their position. Therefore, a man's social and business connections were extremely relevant to his suitability as a husband, perhaps more important than religion or nationality. Conversely, in many cases, a man's success was inextricably linked to the women they married, the daughters they married off, and the networks these women helped them establish throughout the country. The ever-changing power struggles on the Illinois frontier required settlers to adapt to ensure political and financial survival. One way of adapting was to marry into the powerful political families of the day. Thus, ambitious newcomers to The Illinois country found the fastest way to ingratiate themselves with the local French elite was to marry their daughters. Pierre Menard, for example, came to Illinois in 1790 and quickly ingratiated himself into the local elite by marrying Therese Godin, whose family had lived in the area for nearly one hundred years. This marriage put him in the center of a ruling French elite, and what better place to be for a young entrepreneur like Menard? His second marriage was just as beneficial, and Menard went on to become a successful merchant, trader, Indian sub-agent, and the first lieutenant governor of Illinois.

Nicholas Jarrot House

This pattern of marrying into the elite was also adopted by Nicholas Jarrot. Within a year of his arrival in Cahokia, he confirmed his increasing stature in the community with his marriage to Marie-Louise Barbau, who came from a very well-known and respected family. Her father, Jean-Baptiste Barbau, had served as the first judge of St. Clair County. The witnesses at the wedding were from some of the most prominent families of Prairie de Rocher, including the names Janis, Dubuque, and Barbau. Jarrot's second wife, Julie St. Gemme de Bauvais, also hailed from a prominent well-established family. In another example, Pierre Martin, having migrated from Canada to settle at Cahokia, married a Cahokia widow whose inheritance from her father and first husband made her a lucrative catch. He later sold off her family property to pay his debts.

Likewise, long-established French families found that they could maintain their standing in the community—a community increasingly overrun by Americans—by allowing their daughters to take these men as their husbands. Pierre Menard's daughter Marie-Odile married Irishman Hugh Maxwell, a successful businessman. Alzire Menard married George Hancock Kennerly, a close relation to William Clark, the famous explorer, whose political ties helped further her father's business interests. A woman's choice of marriage partner meant personal security and securing the future wealth and position of her entire family.

Despite the emphasis placed upon choosing a marriage partner who would provide well and promote the family's aggrandizement, there is evidence of love matches taking place. Indeed, as the nineteenth century progressed, love, as a requirement for marriage, increased in importance. Extant letters between couples often reveal much affection and tenderness between husbands and wives.

Depending upon when and whom she married, a woman could be bound by one of two legal systems. A set of French laws, called the Custom of Paris, governed marriage contracts and inheritance in The Illinois Country long after the United States took control. Under the Custom of Paris, both husband and wife made monetary contributions to the marriage. A widow generally received half of her husband's estate upon his death. The other half was divided equally between the couple's children, both male and female. This system protected women from their husband's financial carelessness.

As increasing numbers of American settlers moved into Illinois, English Common Law replaced the Custom of Paris. Under this system, when a woman married, her husband became the owner of her property, land, or money. This greatly affected inheritance practices. While the interests of wives, sisters, and daughters were often protected, rarely were they given actual control over land because this land would become the property of her spouse, who might squander it away or allow it to pass out of the family's bloodline. From 1750 to 1820, however, dower laws expanded to offer more protection to women. These laws held that upon the death of her spouse, a woman retained one-third of her husband's real property and one-third of his personal property. The rest was divided, rarely equally, among the children, usually favoring the eldest son.

Since the primary purpose of marriage was to procreate and extend the family line, many years of childbirth and child-rearing awaited women after marriage. Large families were a way to secure the bloodline and provide numerous farm or business workers. Children could promote family interests by marrying well and by caring for their elderly parents.

Most women usually had their first child within two years of their marriage, and on average, they continued to give birth in two-year intervals over the next fifteen or twenty years. Yet having large families posed a significant risk to women. Pregnancy and childbirth were life-threatening endeavors. Multiple pregnancies depleted women's strength and nutritional stores, making each consecutive pregnancy, especially at close intervals, that much more difficult. Numerous medical problems, un-sterilized instruments, and the resulting infections and complications during birth also plagued these women, who lived without the benefits of modern medicine. Many French women and their babies died in childbirth on the Illinois frontier. Those who survived relied on other women to help them through the pregnancy and the delivery. Women often traveled to be together during their period of lying in, and they continued to turn to each other to help with the trials and tribulations of child-rearing.

In addition to raising numerous children, most women spent their time running their households. For many women, the domestic sphere was the only place in which they could gain the satisfaction and power unavailable to them in the public workplace. Daily chores were endless, and even wealthy women found themselves overseeing the kitchen and gardens, ordering supplies for the home, planning menus, directing cleaning, refurbishing or decorating, sewing and repairing garments, and supervising the family slaves. When business or trade required a man to travel far from home, women picked up the slack, acting as their husband's agents and taking over many of his managerial duties at home and in their business life, sometimes for months at a time.

For the well-to-do French wife, promoting the right public image became the hallmark of her role. A smoothly run household raised a family's standing within the community. Some wealthier women took up philanthropic activities, acting as benefactors for orphanages or religious schools. Angelique Saucier Menard was very active in establishing a girls' school in Kaskaskia, and she continued to support the Sisters of the Visitation throughout her lifetime. This, too, lent an aura of prestige to the family name. Displays of hospitality, meant to further business and social aims, also fell to women.

A further job of women was "kin keeping" or "kin work." Women, more than men, actively cultivated contacts among families and relatives, which tied households together. For many women, marriage meant leaving their homes and settling elsewhere. Separated from family, women on the Illinois frontier had to work to retain kinship ties and family networks. Through letter writing, mutual aid, visiting, and orchestrating societal functions, women allowed extended family relations to flourish. Women were key players in births, baptisms, weddings, confirmations, illnesses, death, and funerals. By providing social, emotional and even medical support to their kin, these women constructed and maintained the family ties upon which nearly all business and political pursuits were based in post-colonial Illinois.

The genteel society of the French elite society and culture cultivated and propagated by and through French women provided a model for civilization and social order on the frontier. As a result, many incoming American settlers sought alliances with the native Illinois French. Americans saw this French society, so similar to gentility systems in the East, as a place to begin advancing their own political, economic, and social agendas. Marrying these French families gave a boost to newcomers and, at the same time, allowed the old French families to maintain their place in the powerful circles of a new American government.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.