Who can tell the story of Illinois?

The Illini, who bequeathed a name? Their story comes to us by way of the French. The ghosts of those lost people live in old letters and journals. Their spirits speak through the mediums of another culture. Still, they are there for us to hear, however faint their voices. We can watch them tattooing their bodies head to toe, going on the buffalo hunt, playing a soccer-like game, finding ways to fool or frustrate the Jesuits.

So is it the Illinois tribes who can tell this story? Those who assimilated? Those who resisted the European trade that built a country for other people? Those who were forced out?

Can the French tell Illinois' story? Those explorers, trappers and traders opened the Midwest for white settlers. They listened well to the local lore and built the foundations of a new political economy on this continent. But in the end, they too left few traces: the dream of empire, and the names of a few towns scattered along the rivers of the Illinois country.

This story would have to begin in Algonquian and fade to French. Then to Anglo-American.

But there are other voices, too. Can the Sauk tell this story? The purported "autobiography" of Black Hawk, the tragic warrior of the dispossessed, is, at best, another translated tale. Yet, even if it fails to capture the essential spirit of a man, it captures most of the true facts in the fall of a culture on the prairies in the mid-19th century. And the rise of another.

What about the Germans and the Swedes, who built idealist commun-ities? The Amish, who stayed? The Icarians, who foundered? The Mormons, who fled? Can they tell this story?

Can the Irish tell the story of Illinois, those who built canals and a great urban political machine? What about the Poles, the Asians, Hispanics? Can they tell this story?

Can those who came to this territory in chains to work on the salt flats of southern Illinois? Their story is most often told in whispers, but it can be heard. And editor and essayist Maureen Foertsch McKinney tells us this month that the need to listen has become critical, once again. "Facing what we've overlooked," she begins on page 22 (See web site), "may be more important than resting on our dubious laurels."

Illinois remains a land of immigrants. For this reason, we should listen to all of the stories told by its many races and cultures.

Reading the Illinois story

City of Big Shoulders: A History of Chicago
by Robert G. Spinney, Northern Illinois University, 2000 A summary, including the story of the city's first permanent settler, a black man, and today's Hispanic immigrants.

Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie
by John Mack Faragher, Yale University, 1986 A social history of the early white settlers of Sangamon County.

Prairie Albion: An English Settlement in Pioneer Illinois
by Charles Boewe, Southern Illinois University, 1962 and 1999 Letters and journal entries by George Flower and Morris Birkbeck, the founders of the southern Illinois community who fought to keep the state free of slavery.

An Autobiography of Black Hawk
Edited by Donald Jackson, University of Illinois, 1964 and 1990 Based on the first version published in 1833.

Illinois Issues June 2000 | 4----- Available - in PDF
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