History as They Lived It: A Social History of Prairie du Rocher, Illinois

7. Becoming American

7 Becoming American Travelers' accounts about the quaint French ceased to appear by the 1840s. Immigrants from all over Europe were moving into Illinois; many small ethnic communities were forming, both in rural areas and in urban settings. Foreign customs, language, and mannerisms were no longer unusual features confined to southwestern Illinois . The flight ofpeople to the United States from the old world escalated because of the problems ofwars, politics, and famine. European emigration had occurred earlier- Germans fleeing the Revolution of 1830 and Irish affected by demanding landlords and increasing famine- but the flood swelled throughout the 1840s and 1850s. The potato famines worsened in Ireland; crop failures and political upheaval affected the Swiss, driving them to emigrate. Religious problems drove Germans to America, and again later in the 1870s, when Bismarck opposed organized religion. Many Germans arrived in New Orleans on the cotton trade ships and travelled up the Mississippi River. By the mid-1850s German communities had sprung up near Prairie du Rocher-Millstadt, New Hanover, Red Bud, and Waterloo . When Germany took over Alsace and closed French schools 233 History As They Lived It in the 1870s, French speakers fled to America. They were attracted by the French ties with New Orleans and St. Louis. A few ended up in the Illinois communities where their language still was spoken. Railroads were beginning to spread across the country. The companies that were building railroads in Illinois recruited construction workers from Germany, Ireland, and from the eastern coast of the United States.1 The population center was shifting. Now the northern part of Illinis was receiving the largest amount of immigration. Illinois was no longer the western frontier. St. Louis, across the river, provided the jumping-offplace for further expansion to the West. Population In 1839 Prairie du Rocher was a French village with a few resident American families who had intermarried with the local habitants . The 1839 census covered a parish of 526 persons. The parish and the village community were virtually synonymous. In 1849 the church census, written in August ofthat year, listed 471 persons (the distribution is shown in Figure 3, below). The cause of the decrease 1849 Church Census 45 ...------40 35 .. 30 .! 25 %20 z ;llL - - - - - - - - - - - - - _::::::::::;;;;;=:i 20-29 3().39 4~9 5().59 ~9 70-79 --M --F from 1839 may have been the cholera epidemic that had struck the community earlier in the year, killing at least twenty-five persons, 234 BecomingAmerican including a family of five-Henry Tibout, his wife and children. The composition of households in the 1849 census was similiar to that of 1839, with two exceptions. All blacks were free, and there were proportionally fewer extended families, thirty-five nuclear family units to twenty-nine extended families. However, the number ofpersons in those extended families was greater than in the 1839 census. The cholera epidemic may have caused this; persons who had lost providers in the epidemic may have been taken into the homes ofrelatives. The congruity of community and parish was beginning to break down. The church census listed several new arrivals from France and from other localities, as well as couples noted as not married by the Catholic Church, but by civil ceremony. A year later the federal census of 1850 listed the birthplaces for the people counted. These give an indication of the demographic changes taking place. Only halfofthe family heads enumerated were born in the Illinois country. The others had been born in France, Canada, Louisiana, and different regions ofthe United States. The largest number ofnew males came from Kentucky, but seven other states and four foreign countries in addition to France were represented. In 1860 the census indicated that the original settlers were now less than half of the population at least as far as the heads of family were concerned. The majority of the immigrants were from France. People also were tallied from eight states and four other foreign countries, Germany, England, Canada, and Ireland. A similar pattern appears again in the 1870 census. About thirty people were born in France and an almost equal number in Germany. A number of the latter, even though they are listed in the census as being of German birth, may have been French speakers from Alsace-Lorraine. Some families in the village with German surnames were French speakers and considered themselves French, as later interviews indicated . The number ofnew immigrants...