Bourbonnais, Illinois
village in Kankakee County, Illinois, United States of America
Bourbonnais ( bər-bə-NAY ,bər-BOH-nəs) is a village in Kankakee County, Illinois, United States. The population was 18,164 at the 2020 census.
History
The village is named for François Jace Bourbonnais père, a fur trapper, hunter and agent of the American Fur Company, who had married a Native American woman and arrived in the area near the fork of two major Indian trails and the Kankakee River circa 1830. John Jacob Astor had founded the company in 1808, and when the United States banned foreign (i.e. British and Canadian) companies (such as the Hudson's Bay Company) from competing in the country after the War of 1812, it flourished. By 1830 it had a near monopoly of fur trading in the midwest, but the number of local trappable wild animals had declined.
In 1832, Noel Le Vasseur arrived as the Astor firm local fur trading agent, establishing a trading post in the area, and becoming the first permanent non-Native American settler. He married Watseka, niece of a Potawatomi chieftain, and after the Potawatomi were relocated to Iowa, recruited French-Canadiens to settle around his store. The Potawatomi were forced to move westward by a series of treaties culminating in the Treaty of Tippecanoe, which Congress ratified in 1833. The treaty reserved two sections for Potawanomi chief Me-she-ke-te-no, and one section each for Catish (Mrs.
The public source identifies “Bourbonnais, Illinois” as village in Kankakee County, Illinois, United States of America. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bourbonnais, Illinois and village.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Bourbonnais, Illinois”, the useful work is to connect “village in Kankakee County, Illinois, United States of America” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2110162. VIAF identifies the subject as 262690702. The Library of Congress control number is n82043371. Authority coordinates are 41.165, -87.878. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1830, 1808 and 1812.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Bourbonnais, Illinois”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Bourbonnais, Illinois primary sources, Bourbonnais, Illinois archive and Bourbonnais research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Bourbonnais, Illinois” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.