The Illinois region passed from hunting lands to farm lands very slowly for more than a century after its discovery; then with exceeding rapidity the transformation of the state from hunting grounds to cultivated fields was completed. During this pioneer period, thousands of eager, industrious people from all parts of America and Europe came to Illinois to find homes, till farms, build cities, and develop a worthy civili zation. By 1833 the national government had secured title from the Indians to all the lands of the state; by 1860 the pioneer period had passed and the lands of Illinois were fully occupied, ready for a long period of continuous development and progress.
The earliest French settlements in Illinois were made about the year 1700 at Cahokia in St. Clair County and at Kaskaskia in Randolph County. In 1722 Prairie du Rocher in Randolph County was also founded by the French. About 1800, Shawneetown in Gallatin County was first settled.
In a hundred years, 1700 to 1800, the white population of the state had reached only 2,458; the population of 1810 was 12,282, a gain of 400 per cent in ten years, and up to this date no public lands had been placed on sale by the national government. Under a system of land tenure whereby the public lands are to pass into the hands of individuals for pri vate and permanent ownership and occupation, the would-be owners must await the action of the government. Thus Illinois remained practically an Indian country until the land was surveyed and officially opened to settlement.
The survey of Illinois was authorized in 1804. The second, third, and fourth principal meridians and their base lines were established. Locating main township lines was begun in 1804, but detail work in the townships was not taken up until about 1810. Sales of public lands in Illinois were first made in 1814. When Illinois was admitted as a state in 1818, southern Illinois had been surveyed and opened to settlement. The survey is described as follows in Illinois in 1818: The frontier of government survey then, in ISIS. started on the Missis sippi near Alton and ran east to the third principal meridian, then south thirty miles to the base line, east again to the southeast corner of the Vin cennes tract and then northeastwardly along the boundaries of that tract and the Harrison purchase to the Indiana line near the boundary between the present Vermilion and Edgar counties.
The map facing page 52 in Illinois in 1818 shows the extent of this survey. North of this frontier line of government survey of 1818, some lands were still held by the Indians, some had been ceded by the Indians to the federal government, and the "military tract" between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers had been surveyed and opened to allotment under the law in October, 1S17. The "military tracts" consisted of 6,000,000 acres of public lands in Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri, set aside by Congress at the beginning of the War of 1812 to satisfy the bounties of 160 acres promised to each soldier. The "military tract" of Illinois included 3,500,000 acres, or one tenth of the state. It extended northward from the junction of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers to an east-west line drawn from the junction of the Vermilion and Illinois rivers at La Salle due west to the Mississippi River between Rock Island and Mercer counties. No important settlements in the mili tary tract were possible in the few months that elapsed between its opening in October, 1817, and the movement for statehood. After statehood was attained, the public lands of the entire state were rapidly made available for settlement. The open ing of the Erie Canal and the development of steamboat traffic on the Great Lakes brought an ever-increasing stream of immigrants into the northern and central parts of the state.
The pioneer.—The frontier line during American settlement may be considered as the line separating regions having a density of population of more than 2 persons per square mile from regions having less than 2 per square mile. The hunter pioneer usually crossed the frontier line and lived much as did the Indian. As the frontier line approached his home in the solitude, he moved westward. The first settler lived along the frontier line, and, as a denser population of permanent settlers approached, he sold his belongings and moved westward.
A clear picture of pioneer life in Illinois is developed in Illinois in 1818 in the chapter "The Pioneers." The writer draws largely from the descriptions written by the early inhabitants themselves. Space permits only an abstract of the more salient facts: Fordham divided the people of the frontier into four classes. To the first two of these classes belonged the bulk of the pioneers.