Early history near East St Louis in St Clair County on the Ohio River in Massac County, as it may have looked during its peak The earliest inhabitants of Illinois are thought to have arrived about 12,000 BC. They were indigenous
hunter-gatherers, but they also developed their own system of agriculture. After AD 1000, the production of agricultural surpluses resulted in the development of complex, hierarchical societies. With the rise of the
Mississippian culture in the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys, tribal leaders organized thousands of workers to build complex urban areas featuring numerous large
earthworks – pyramidal, ridgetop and conical
mounds used for religious, political and ceremonial purposes. The Illinois tribes, for whom the state is named, and other historic tribes migrated to Southern Illinois around AD 1500. Archaeologists say they were not descendants of the earlier inhabitants; they spoke an
Algonquian language of Miami-Illini, shared in dialects among neighboring regional tribes. They had likely migrated from eastern areas, where Algonquian-speaking tribes emerged along the Atlantic Coast and waterways. The
Illini left numerous artifacts, including burial sites, burned-out campfires along the bases of bluffs, pottery, flint implements, and weapons. Structures built by them include stone forts or "pounds". Visitors can see a stone fort in
Giant City State Park near
Makanda. At least eight other such structures are known in the region. A map of Illinois free and slave counties in 1824 showing shaded counties that were favorable to legalizing slavery in Illinois In 1787, the federal government included Illinois in the
Northwest Territory, an unorganized area that included present-day Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Slavery was prohibited in this area, but for some time, slaveholders already in the area were allowed to keep their chattel property. As the areas became more populated with European Americans, they could be admitted as states to the Union. Illinois became a part of the
Indiana Territory in 1800. Illinois settlers wanted more control over their own affairs and Illinois became a
separate territory in 1809. It was admitted as a free state in 1818. In late 1811 and early 1812, the
New Madrid earthquakes struck the region as one of the largest successions of
earthquakes, including the most intensive ever inferred (not recorded) in the
contiguous United States.
Cairo, Illinois, at the southern tip where the Ohio River joins the Mississippi, grew to considerable commercial importance. On either bank of the rivers were states which, despite remaining loyal to the national government throughout the secession crisis, had numerous residents who, for reasons predominately rooted in racial ideologies, were sympathetic to the
Southern rebellion (1860–65). Some prominent Southern Illinoisans were active in the
Knights of the Golden Circle, which proposed a southern pan-Caribbean confederation of slaveholding states and nations. The outbreak of the
American Civil War exacerbated sectional tensions in the region. While the vast majority of Southern Illinoisans who served did so as U.S. volunteers, 34 men from the counties of Williamson and Jackson traveled to western Tennessee to enlist within Company G of the
15th Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. Far more served in the ranks of U.S. regiments like the
31st Illinois Volunteer Infantry, commanded by famed Southern Illinoisan
John A. Logan, or
111th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, both of which were composed exclusively of Southern Illinoisans.
Ulysses S Grant was commander of the
District of Cairo when U.S. forces staged expeditions into the border states of Missouri and Kentucky, and the
Confederate states of Tennessee and Mississippi. Despite the Southern roots of many Southern Illinoisans, 40% of eligible Southern Illinois men joined the Union Army, compared to 28% in the rest of the state.
20th century Coal mining became an important industry in Southern Illinois around the start of the 20th century, with cities such as
Harrisburg prospering, having a population of 16,000 people during the 1920s. Union miners all over the nation went on strike in 1922; during this period, 24 men were killed during a riot in
Herrin, in Williamson County. It was called the
Herrin Massacre, and the county was known as
Bloody Williamson for years to come. However, demand for high-sulfur coal mined in the region has rebounded in the 2010s. Agriculture has since become the main economic driver for the Southern Illinois region. Southern Illinois is gaining a cultural identity apart from its neighbors, as previously-dispersed rural populations become more concentrated around the cities of
Marion and
Belleville. Marion has grown since 1970 and in the process has been selected for Illinois' first STAR Bonds District for the Millennium Development, a project designed for a city ten times its size. Populations among the smaller cities and towns have dropped as people moved to the Carbondale-Herrin-Marion combined statistical area and
Metro East.
Origin of "Little Egypt" name In 1799, Baptist minister John Badgley dubbed the fertile highlands and bottoms near Edwardsville the "
Land of Goshen". Early Edwardsville was known as Goshen, a
biblical reference to
Ancient Egypt. Geographic features such as the Mississippi and its flood plains were like the fertile
Nile Valley. The Indian mounds of the area were large at the time and seemed like the
pyramids of Egypt. The nickname stuck, and it was reinforced by other events. In the 1830s, poor harvests in the north of the state drove people to Southern Illinois to buy grain. Others say it was because the land of the great Mississippi and
Ohio River valleys were like that of Egypt's
Nile Delta. According to Hubbs, the nickname dates back to 1818, when a huge tract of land was purchased at the confluence of the rivers and its developers named it
Cairo . Today, the town of Cairo still stands on the peninsula where the Ohio River joins the Mississippi. Other settlements in the area were also given names with Egyptian, Greek, or Middle Eastern origins: The
Southern Illinois University Salukis
sports teams and towns such as
Metropolis,
Thebes,
Dongola,
Palestine,
Lebanon,
New Athens,
Sparta, and
Karnak show the influence of classical culture. Greek names were also related to the contemporary national pride in the new republic of the early 19th century, and were given to towns throughout the Midwest. Although Illinois was a
free state before the
American Civil War, some residents in the area known as Egypt still owned slaves. Illinois law generally forbade bringing
slaves into Illinois, but a special exemption was given to the
salt works near
Equality. In addition, an exception was made for slaveholders who held long-term indentured servants or descendants of slaves in the area before it achieved statehood. The
Underground Railroad also operated in southern Illinois, moving nearly equally northward and southward with bounties available for returned slaves appealing to the residents there. Slaves were going to "
Canaan", the land of milk and honey, for which at first glance
Egypt would be an easy mistake. Directions to Underground Railroad travelers were coded in Bible verses or songs, and the story of Moses fleeing Egypt was certainly used as an analog to their own plight. Egypt was the land to escape, and central Illinois represented the biblical Canaan, with Egypt being a treacherous southern Illinois. The nicknames for this region also arose from the political tensions of the
American Civil War period, as regions of the state allied differently with North and South. Because southern Illinois was settled by
Southerners, they maintained a sympathy for many issues of their former home states. They supported the continuation of slavery and voted for Democrats at a time when the northern part of the state supported Republicans. The meaning is expressed in this description of the 1858 campaign of Douglas and Abraham Lincoln: In 1858, debating in northern Illinois, Douglas had threatened Lincoln by asserting that he would "trot him down to Egypt" and there challenge him to repeat his antislavery views before a hostile crowd. The audience understood Douglas: overwhelming proslavery sentiment and Democratic unanimity in Egypt had led to the nickname. In the fall of 1861, Democrats took a majority of seats in the state legislature. They worked to pass provisions of a new constitution, an initiative begun in 1860. They proposed reapportionment so the southern region's less populous counties would have representation equal to those in the north, which was growing more rapidly. Northern Illinois residents worried about the state coming under the political will of the southern minority. "Shall the manufacturing, agricultural and commercial interests of northern Illinois be put into Egyptian bondage?" wondered the
Aurora Beacon. When Lincoln commissioned the Southern Illinois Democrat
John Alexander McClernand as a brigadier general, he told him to "keep Egypt right side up". Southern Illinois had become the center of the
Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret group devoted to supporting the Confederacy. With concern rising about armed southern sympathizers, in August 1862, U.S. Marshal David Phillips arrested several Democrats who allegedly belonged to the Knights, including men in respectable positions: Congressmen, state representatives, and judges. One was Circuit Judge Andrew Duff. They were sent to Washington, D.C., where they were held for 68 days before release, but they were never charged. Democrats won across the state in the fall election. The nickname persisted through the 1890s, when, according to
progressive journalist and
Toledo mayor
Brand Whitlock, members of the
Illinois General Assembly whose districts lay south of the
O&M Railway were called "Egyptians".
Belly dancer
Farida Mazar Spyropoulos' appearance as "Little Egypt" at the 1893
World's Columbian Exposition in
Chicago brought notoriety to the name, but she had no connection to the Illinois region. Other dancers took up the stage name which popularized it further in the early 20th century. One of the earliest uses of the phrase "Little Egypt" is found in the
Troy Weekly Call of Troy, Illinois, in 1912. A state news brief was headlined "Two New Little Egypt Pastors", about two new Presbyterian pastors about to be installed at
Brookport and
Salem, Illinois. The
Chicago Tribune appears to have first used the phrase "Little Egypt" in reference to Southern Illinois on April 25, 1920 in an article about fruit grown in the region. The title character in the comic strip
Moon Mullins had a girlfriend named Little Egypt. The strip's creator, Frank Willard, was a native of
Anna and Southern Illinois. ==Microregions==