Additionally, with the expansion of European and Iroquois contact, the Illinois were exposed to a variety of new diseases that caused high mortality among them. Through war and foreign disease, the Illinois population drastically declined to a village of about 300 people by 1778. Pushed out by the Iroquois and Shawnee and facing more numerous European settlers, the Illinois accepted a reservation in 1832 at the Big Muddy River south of Kaskaskia. But within a few months, they ceded the rest of their territory and migrated in order to settle on a reservation in Eastern Kansas.