woman disowned her mixed-race son for living "among the savage nations". Many of the Canadiens and their descendants at Kaskaskia became voyageurs and coureurs des bois, who would explore and exploit the Missouri River country for fur trading. The Canadiens had the goal of trading with all the Prairie tribes, and beyond them, with the Spanish colony in New Mexico. The Spanish intended to keep control of the latter trade. The Canadien goals stimulated the expedition of Claude Charles Du Tisne to establish trade relations with the Plains Indians in 1719. King Louis XV sent a bell to Kaskaskia in 1741 for its church, one of several constructed there. During the years of French rule, Kaskaskia and the other agricultural settlements in the Illinois Country were critical for supplying Lower Louisiana, especially New Orleans, with wheat and corn, as these staple crops could not be grown in the Gulf climate. Farmers shipped tons of flour south over the years, which helped New Orleans survive. The French settlers raised Fort Kaskaskia around 1759; the fort stood atop the bluff that overlooked the frontier village.[1] "Fort Kaskaskia" is not technically a "fort", but an earthen redoubt. Frontier settlers throughout Woodland North America often built such redoubts for defense during times of threat from Native Americans. In 1763, the French ceded the Illinois country, including Kaskaskia and the redoubt, to Great Britain after being defeated in the Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War on the North American front). The British did not use the redoubt but from 1766 through 1772, maintained a rotating detachment of around 25 men under a junior officer, from Fort de Chartres. They used the Jesuit compound as their base. Rather than live under British rule after France ceded the territory east of the river, many French-speaking people from Kaskaskia and other colonial towns had moved west of the Mississippi to Ste. Genevieve, St. Louis, and other areas. In May 1772, when the British abandoned Fort de Chartres, Kaskaskia continued to survive as a primarily French-speaking village on the Mississippi River frontier. American settlement During one of the westernmost military campaigns of the American Revolution, the city fell on July 4, 1778, to George Rogers Clark and his force of 200 men, including Captains Joseph Bowman and Leonard Helm. The parish rang the church bell in celebration, and it has since been called the "liberty