"In this major new history of the making of the state, Davis tells a sweeping story of Illinois, from the Ice Age to the eve of the Civil War.".

"The story begins with three eyewitness accounts of the settlement process during its highest tide in the 1830s. But there were much earlier settlers to Illinois. Archaic Indians entered the region around 8000 B.C. By A.D. 1100, some 20,000 Indians of the Mississippian culture lived in the villages around Cahokia, a population rivaling that of any city in Europe at the time.

By the time of the arrival of LaSalle and Jolliet and the founding of the French colony, these civilizations had virtually disappeared; other tribes had entered the area and lived in uneasy proximity to the European newcomers. British Illinois, whose fate was sealed by defeat in the Revolutionary War, makes for a relatively brief chapter in the history of the territory, but as the nineteenth century begins, a complex tale unfolds of settlement from the South and the East, bringing major population growth and an influx of distinct cultural traditions to Illinois. Over the next half century, social, economic, and political developments set the stamp on the character of the emerging state.

Davis treats these developments in careful detail, while keeping the reader mindful of the experiences of Illinois' ordinary people." "A major theme of this book is the relative absence of violence, at least after the Blackhawk War of 1832, even over explosive issues such as slavery. By the 1850s, with railroads crossing the state and Chicago taking its place as the gateway between east and west, Illinois passed beyond its frontier period."--BOOK JACKET.