It's a mistake to think of central Illinois before significant European settlement as solely native American.
That's according to a historian and Illinois State University Professor who is out with a new book on the transformation of the region between 1762 and 1825.We might be tempted to think of the region as only lightly touched by Europeans until the late 1700s as the U.S. settled it's little spat with the mother country and began organizing a nation. That, of course ignores a couple hundred years of Spanish and French exploration, the network of French trading villages and then cities, and so on.
In this interview with GLT's Charlie Schlenker, John Reda talks about the surprising diversity of the region as he tells it in his new book "From Furs To Farms: The Transformation of the Mississippi Valley 1762-1825"
Also hear Reda talk about Illinois and the question of slavery.
