A pioneer and entrepreneur, Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable is acknowledged as the founder of the settlement that later became the city of Chicago. Du Sable was an African man born in St. Marc, Santa Domingo (eastern Haiti) in 1745. At that point, the island had been colonized by Spain and France, and its inhabitants were a blend of Indigenous peoples, Spanish, French, and enslaved people from Africa. Du Sable’s father was a ship merchant from France, and his mother was Haitian slave. It was through this education and the work that he performed for his father on his ships, that he learned languages including French, Spanish, English, and many Indian dialects. DuSable likely left the island around 1770 for other French territory, possibly New Orleans or parts of French Canada.
At some time in the 1770s he went to the Great Lakes area of North America, settling on the shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Chicago River, with his wife Kitihawa, a Potowatomi woman. The natives called the area where Du Sable settled Eschikagou because of the wild onions that grew in the region. The homestead and trading post they built on the mouth of the Chicago River, with a comfortably appointed cabin, workshop, bake house, stable, smokehouse, and more, was the first settlement on what would become the city of Chicago. An explorer and entrepreneur, Du Sable was a well-known and highly respected businessman in the Northwest territory of the United States.
During his career, the areas where he settled around the Great Lakes and in the Illinois Country changed hands several times among France, Britain, Spain and the new United States. He traded heavily with neighboring tribes and established the main supply station for westward bound White men who were moving from the English colonies. He spoke fluent French, Spanish, English and several Native American languages. Fur traders were the advance guard of the international capitalist market and invasive settlement. Many traders were welcomed by Indians because they brought metal tools and, just as important, wool and cotton cloth. Sadly, another staple of the trade was alcohol. Like most other traders, DuSable trafficked in liquor.
In 1779, during the Revolutionary War, he was living on the site of present-day Michigan City, Indiana, when he was arrested by the British military on suspicion of being an American sympathizer. These allegations were never substantiated. He spent the next few years as their prisoner at Fort Mackinac. From 1780 to 1783 he managed for his captors a trading post called the Pinery on the St. Clair River in present-day Michigan, after which he returned to the site of Chicago. He built a home on the north bank of the Chicago River, claimed about 800 acres of land and established a thriving trading post which included a mill, smokehouse, workshop, barn and other smaller buildings. The post became a major supply station for other traders in the Great Lakes region.
At this point, Chicago was hardly a vast empty space. It was already a trading post inhabited by Indigenous peoples. By 1790 Du Sable’s establishment there had become an important link in the region’s fur and grain trade. Over the following years visits continued, and occasional intermittent posts were established, including those by René LaSalle, Henri Tonti, Pierre Liette and the four-year Mission of the Guardian Angel. Point du Sable 1780s establishment is recognized as the first settlement that continued on and ultimately grew to become the city of Chicago. He is therefore widely regarded as the first permanent resident of Chicago and has been given the appellation “Founder of Chicago“.
In 1800, Du Sable sold his Chicago holdings to a European trader for $1,200 ($17,000). DuSable’s post, with its diverse clientele of Indian, French and American traders, established a tradition of commerce that would provide the foundation of Chicago’s economy for decades to come. He left the region that would become a great metropolis. He moved to live with his son on property they owned in Saint Charles, Missouri. There are many theories as to why he left Chicago but many believe that his imprisonment during the Revolutionary War by the British may have precipitated his move from the region as the “westward expansion” of Europeans continued to advance.
By the 1850s, historians of Chicago recognized Point du Sable as the city’s earliest non-native permanent resident. For a long time the city did not honor him in the same manner as other pioneers. Point du Sable was generally forgotten in the 19th century and instead the Scots-Irish trader John Kinzie, who had bought his property, was often credited for the settlement. Point du Sable’s successful role in developing the Chicago River settlement was little recognized until the mid-20th century. Later Chicago would honor its first citizen. A high school, museum, harbor, park and bridge in Chicago have been named or renamed after him and the place where he settled at the mouth of the Chicago River is recognized as a National Historical Landmark.