French roots in the Illinois country

Focusing on the French Creole communities and agricultural practices on both sides of the Mississippi River, this volume provides a comprehensive history of colonial settlement in the Illinois Country. Carl Ekberg presents a completely new perspective on Illinois history by examining a number of previously unexplored issues: the medieval style open field agriculture, the first use of African slaves in the region as agricultural laborers, the flour trade between Illinois and New Orleans, and the significance of the different mentalites of French Creoles and Anglo-Americans in early Illinois.

First sentence: French Canadian families lived separately, as Peter Kalm, a Swedish (born an ethnic Finn) traveler and diarist, observed; each family settled independently on its own elongated parcel of land.

Year

1998

Language

English

Publisher

University of Illinois Press

Editions

1

Pages

376

ISBN

9780252069246

Data source: Wikidata