Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library ;

Like the book Cahokia Records, 1778-1790, this volume is from the series “Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library”. This book follows a different plan from that one, however. This has only a very brief introductory chapter, and the remainder of the book consists of chapters on fairly specific topics, telling the stories of those topics through the use of documents. All documents that were originally in French appear in the original, followed by English translations.

Browning was a Whig politician and lawyer in Illinois. He was also a friend of Abraham Lincoln, who went to Washington as a member of Lincoln’s cabinet. He maintained a diary, from which this book was compiled by two history professors from the University of Illinois. In 1850 Browning worked as a lawyer in Quincy, ILL. Diary entries in the early 1850s (1851 is missing) were often brief references to his work “attending court”, travel details as he rode the court circuit (like Lincoln), or weather updates. There are occasional finely detailed entries describing personal or political events of interest. Notes by the editors fill in details about many of the persons or events that Browning mentions in passing.

Using original French correspondence and papers (with English translations), the authors have tried to document the period between the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War as it was reflected in the Illinois country. The collection mainly represents the writings of the people who labored to maintain the cause of France in the West. Throughout, the story is one of Indian disaffection, of the wiles which English traders exercised not merely over the French Indians, but over the French traders themselves, of the measures concerted at New Orleans and Quebec to uphold the name of France in the interior and of how these measures were carried out on the ground by post commandants, officers and Jesuits. - From the author’s Preface

This is the first of three volumes of collected historical documents in a series on the era of the British regime in Illinois country. Note that any French documents in the collection are translated.

This is the third of three volumes of collected historical documents in a series on the era of the British regime in Illinois country. Note that any French documents in the collection are translated.