Athome: 1700: Time Line: 1673

Time Line: 1673 - 1800

Jesuit Missionary	1673	Father Marquette and Louis Jolliet explored the Illinois country.
	1675	Marquette founded Jesuit mission with Kaskaskia Indians near Starved Rock.
	1680	La Salle built Fort Crevecoeur near present-day Peoria.
	1691	Starved Rock mission moved to Peoria area and some French settlers collected around the mission and the fort.
	1699	Priests of the Seminary of Foreign Missions established a mission with the Tamaroa Indians at Cahokia.
	1700- 1703	Jesuits moved mission from Peoria to the Mississippi Valley, settling briefly at Des Peres River and then founding the town of Kaskaskia near the mouth of the Kaskaskia River.
11 Fort Crevecoeur	1718	New Orleans was founded. Governance of Illinois country was transferred from Canada to New Orleans and assigned to the French Company of the Indies, a royal-chartered enterprise.
	1719- 1721	First Fort de Chartres was built of palisades and center of French colonial government in Illinois was established there.
	1722	Company of the Indies awarded first land grants to prominent people.
	1723	Philippe Renaut established an active lead-mining operation on the west side of the Mississippi and founded St. Philippe.
Louis XV, King of France	1730	French and Indian allies attacked the Fox Indians who threatened the French settlements in central Illinois.
	1731	Illinois became a royal province, governed directly by the French crown.
	1732	Village of Prairie du Rocher emerged.
	1735	Population pressure in Cahokia led over half the Cahokia Indians to move ten miles to the North. Chapel was built on Monks Mound.
	1750	Ste. Genevieve was established on the west side of the Mississippi River by settlers from Kaskaskia and Cahokia.
Gate to Fort de Chartres	1753	Fort de Chartres began to be rebuilt in stone. It was finished three years later at a cost of 5 million livres.
	1763	Jesuits in Illinois received word that their religious order had been disbanded by the French crown. They were expelled from Illinois. Fearing the same persecution, the Seminarian priest at Cahokia sold the mission there and fled.
	1763	French and Indian War ended. Illinois country ceded to Great Britain.
	1764	Settlement of St. Louis began on west side of Mississippi River.
	1765	British soldiers took over Fort de Chartres and many French families chose to move to the Spanish (Catholic) controlled area west of the Mississippi rather than live under English (Protestant) rule.
Clark's arrival in Kaskaskia	1778	George Rogers Clark and his American troops arrived to claim the Illinois country, which became a county of Virginia.
	1779	First few American settlers came to the Illinois country.
	1784	Virginia ceded Illinois to the U.S. government.
	1785	As part of the Northwest Territory, Illinois was to be surveyed and divided into townships, with land set aside for support of public schools. Slavery was abolished by law, but persisted in the region.