The American Bottom is a sixty mile long strip of lowland between the bluffs and the east bank of the Mississippi River whose earliest recorded history appears in the annals of France, England, and Spain as these nations fought one another and native Indian tribes for dominion of the New World. After the discoveries of Jolliet and Marquette in 1673 and LaSalle's exploration in 1682, France claimed the entire Mississippi Valley, and in the center of this vast Illinois Country, stretching from the Appalachian Mountains in the East to the Spanish Empire in the West, Louis XIV erected a fort while settlers from Canada and France established Cahokia in 1699 and, early in the eighteenth century, St. Philippe, Fort Chartres, Prairie du Rocher, and Kaskaskia. During England's occupation of the Illinois Country from 1765 to 1778, the American Bottom served as the center of administration for the renamed Illinois Province of Quebec. Virginia also made it the headquarters of Illinois County from 1778 to 1781 after George Rogers Clark drove the British from the area. As part of the Old Northwest Territory, the American Bottom gained recognition under the government of the United States as the site of the first county established in Illinois in 1790, the capital of the Illinois Territory from 1809 to 1818, and the home of the first state capital.