American Bottom
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The American Bottom is the flood plain of the Mississippi River in the Metro-East region of Southern Illinois, extending from Alton, Illinois, to the Kaskaskia River. It is also sometimes called "American Bottoms". The area is about 175 square miles (450 km2), mostly protected from flooding by a levee and drainage canal system. Immediately across the river from St. Louis, Missouri are industrial and urban areas, but many swamps and the major Horseshoe Lake are reminders of its riparian nature.
The southern portion of the American Bottom is primarily agricultural, planted chiefly in corn, wheat, and soybean. The American Bottom is in the Mississippi Flyway, used by migrating birds, and has the greatest concentration of bird species in Illinois. The flood plain is bounded on the east by a nearly continuous, 200-300 foot high, 80-mile (130 km) long bluff of limestone and dolomite, above which begins the great prairie that covers most of the state. The Mississippi River bounds the Bottom on its west; the river abuts the bluffline on the Missouri side. Portions of St. Clair, Madison, Monroe, and Randolph counties are in American Bottom. Its maximum width is about 9 miles (14 km) in the north, and it is about 2–3 miles in width throughout most of its southern extent.
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[edit] History
(See Cahokia)
The name American derives from the time of the United States' acquisition of the Northwest Territory after the American Revolution and before the Louisiana Purchase. At this time the French colonists west of the Mississippi River referred to the eastern bottomlands as the "American" bottoms because of the change in sovereignty. The area to the west of the river was sometimes called the "Spanish Bottom".
Before European settlement, the area was home for many centuries to indigenous peoples. The peak civilization was created by peoples of the Mississippian culture, known as the Mound Builders. With the cultivation of maize, they were able to create food surpluses and build concentrated settlements in the centuries after 600 CE. The Cahokia Mounds Site, which was built as the center attracted a rapid increase in population after 1000 CE, is a six-square mile complex of large, man-made, earthen mounds rising from the flood plain. In 1982 it was designated one of only eight World Heritage Sites in the United States by the United Nations UNESCO.
The most prominent structure is Monks Mound, rising ten stories high at the center of the complex and fronting on a 40-acre Grand Plaza. Monks Mound is the largest Pre-Columbian earthwork in the Americas, and the complex is the largest earthwork north of Mexico. The engineering of the mounds showed that their builders had an expert knowledge of the varying soils and their capacities. Cahokia was a complex, planned and designed urban center, with a residential population, farming and artisan production of refined crafts and goods. With its location at the confluence of three major rivers, it was the center of a regional trading network reaching to the Great Lakes and the Gulf Coast. With a population estimated at 30,000 at its peak, Cahokia was the largest city north of modern-day Mexico. Perhaps due to ecological reasons of deforestation and overhunting by the population, the city went into decline after 1300 and was abandoned before 1400. No city in the territorial United States surpassed this population until Philadelphia after 1800.
Archaeological investigation has determined that the various types of mounds were arranged in a planned construction that reflected the cosmology of the Mississippians. The smaller ridge-top and conical mounds were used for ritual burials, some for elites and some for apparent sacrifices. The larger platform mounds were used for temples and homes of the elite. Archaeologists have found remains of a 2-mile long, defensive wooden stockade, which enclosed the central precinct and was rebuilt several times. They also discovered two major solar calendars, which they called Woodhenge, as the works were constructed of cedar, considered a sacred wood. The area surrounding the mounds had numerous borrow pits, from which soil was taken to build the mounds, and to fill and level the Grand Plaza and other plazas.
After Cahokia was abandoned, there were few indigenous inhabitants in the area in the 17th century, at the time of French exploration.[1] The French made the earliest European settlement in this region of the Mississippi River Valley. They encountered an Illiniwek tribe called Cahokia, after whom the complex was named. The French villages included Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Prairie du Rocher, and Prairie du Pont. Examples of 18th-century French colonial architecture are found here, including the old Cahokia courthouse and Holy Family Catholic Church, both made with distinctive vertical log construction.
European-American settlers began arriving near the end of the Revolution after the conquest of the Illinois Country. The Goshen Settlement was an early American settlement at the edge of the Bottom. The rich alluvial floodplain was used mostly for agriculture until the late 19th century. The rivers provided trading and transportation.
The area directly across from Saint Louis, Missouri, is highly industrialized. Due to the prevailing west winds, industrialists located many "smokestack" industries here, such as steel mills, chemical plants, and oil refineries. In addition, industries were developed in this area because the heart of Saint Louis had already been inhabited and built up for years. In the early 20th century, the industrial jobs in the American Bottom attracted many European immigrants and African American migrants. The latter left the southern states in the Great Migration to work in these factories and gain better lives for their children. Eastern European immigrants founded the first Bulgarian Orthodox Church in the United States in Madison, Illinois. Today East Saint Louis is predominantly African American, as other immigrant descendants moved to other areas as they followed jobs and housing. Heavy industry is still prominent in the area, although total employment in these industries continues to decline after restructuring and industry changes.
Like the Mississippians, Americans made massive changes in the floodplain; their development reduced its ability to absorb floods. The destruction of wetlands and paving over of areas along all the major rivers has increased the severity of flooding over the decades, despite engineering solutions. During the Great Flood of 1993, major portions of the southern Bottom were flooded; 47,000 acres (190 km²) of land below Columbia, Illinois was inundated, destroying the town of Valmeyer. The waters came within five feet of overtopping the East Saint Louis levee. If they had run over, they would have flooded 71,000 acres (290 km²) and destroyed this urban industrial area.
[edit] Major cities in American Bottom
[edit] See also
- Southern Illinois, a major geographical region of Illinois
- Metro-East, the urban area east of Saint Louis, Missouri
- Illinois Caverns State Natural Area, part of a major Karst region draining into the Bottom.
- Fort de Chartres, early French colonial fort
[edit] References
- ^ Biloine Whiting Young and Melvin L. Fowler, Cahokia: The Great Native American Metropolis, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000, p.315
[edit] External links
- "American Bottom Landing", RiverWeb, Illinois State Museum
- Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site and Interpretive Center, Official Website
- "American Bottom", Illinois historical marker
- "American Bottom Ecosystem Partnership", Southwestern Illinois Resource Conservation & Development
