62
thePeorian.com
Personal Profile
After receiving food from
the friendly Illinois tribesmen,
several weeks later La Salle and
de Tonti directed the construction
of Fort Crevecoeur, the first struc-
ture built by Europeans in the
present state of Illinois. The fort
was abandoned only two months
later when La Salle returned to
Canada to retrieve additional
supplies and de Tonti went back
upriver to scout Starved Rock as
a location for a second fort. The
construction of Fort Crevecoeur
has resulted in one of the greatest
historical mysteries in the state of
Illinois: The exact location of the
Fort has never been determined
and is still a source of debate and
investigation.
Two years later, La Salle and
de Tonti returned to Starved
Rock and began construction of
Fort St. Louis on top of the rock
formation. From this location, de
Tonti managed the fur trading
operations for La Salle for the
next eight years. After La Salle’s
death in 1690, the King of France
granted de Tonti and his cousin,
Francois Dauphin de La Forest,
exclusive trading rights for the
entire Illinois Territory.
The Native American villages
in the vicinity of the French trad-
ing outpost and fort at Starved
Rock had grown until the
population was well over 15,000
inhabitants. The opportunity to
trade furs and food for European
sourced goods, as well as the no-
tion that the French fort offered
protection from the marauding
Iroquois, was a great attraction
for the Illinois tribes.
This concentrated popula-
tion of Native Americans in
the vicinity of Starved Rock
was unsustainable and in 1691
a large portion of the Illinois
tribes moved their villages to the
narrows between the upper and
