The “Big Chief” steel and fiberglass statue stands at 30 feet tall (current world’s tallest "cigar store Indian") where Mead Ave. meets the Southwest highway in Oak Lawn. Depicting a Native American man with a headdress, the figure is shown with one arm raised covering his eyes from the sun and the other holding a bundle of sticks (possibly tobacco). Created by Wisconsin based company Creative Display, it was first bought for $14,000 by the now closed Cooke County Tobacco Warehouse. Like other so-called “Cigar Store Indians,” this iconography has been used nationally as advertisement for tobacco since the 17th century in England. Sometimes referred to as their much smaller renditions, “Virginie Men,” these tabletop statues were displayed in Eastern U.S. states to advertise tobacco sales but have since been enlarged and displayed outside of businesses for the same purpose.  Since the closure of the Cook County Tobacco Warehouse in 1998, Cardinal Liquor Barn Inc. purchased the statue for $10,000. Jim Shirazi, Cardinal Liquor’s owner, has since spent over $30,000 relocating, cleaning, and restoring the statue. In 2015, Shirazi had the statue repainted, reportedly adding greater detail to the headdress plumage, retouching the buckskin traditional clothing and changing the blue sash to green. Another report remarks that since its relocation the repairs had fixed areas on the statue where it had been “pierced by arrows” while sitting on top of the Tobacco Warehouse.  Representations (and misrepresentations) of Native history and people are present across public art and architecture in Chicago. Other aspects of the built environment feature colonial narratives that marginalize Native people or erase them altogether. On this map, we have selected a examples of iconography to feature, but you can see a full map of many more sites across Chicago here.

The California Indian Manpower Consortium, Inc. (CIMC) was founded in 1978 to promote the social welfare, economic development, and educational needs of Native communities in California. Although the nonprofit is based in California, it has created a consortium of tribal nations, tribal communities, and organizations across the United States. As the only field office outside of California, the Chicago office is able to cater to the needs of the Chicago community. CIMC provides job training, educational training, job search or placement, leadership programs, and counseling or career planning.

Looking northwest across the bridge we can see Merchandise Mart, a well known commercial building, typically known for its Art Deco design and the fact that it was built by Marshall Field & Co and owned by the Kennedy family for a number of years. However, what many don't know is that it was also the site of a Wea Summer Village and a Jesuit Mission from 1696 to 1702. The village, which included Wea people (who were part of the larger Myaamia group at that time), as well as Kaskaskia and Peoria people, pre-dated the Jesuit mission. Jesuits hoping to convert Native people knew that they had to integrate into existing Native communities to have any hope of success, and Native people had long-standing practices of welcoming newcomers into their villages. Today, Peoria, Kaskaskia, and Wea people are recognized within the Peoria Nation of Oklahoma, and Myaamia people are recognized as the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. Both of these communities continue to use a dictionary that was created at this mission for language revitalization efforts.  Several centuries later, after Merchandise Mart was built, it also served as the home of the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) (today called the Bureau of Indian Affairs) from 1942 to 1947. During this time, delegates from the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Nation, the Fort Belknap Nation, the Rosebud Sioux Nation, the Uintah and Ouray Nation, the Osage Nation, and the Blackfeet Nation all visited the OIA in Chicago. Though the OIA moved back to Washington D.C. in 1947, the voluntary relocation program that designated Chicago as a relocation city and brought thousands of Native people here was founded just five years later in 1952.  Proceed south two blocks on La Salle, then turn left on Randolph, stopping at the corner of Randolph and Clark in front of the Thompson Center.

Our next stop is 411 N La Salle, the site of the Chicago American Indian Center from its founding in 1953 to 1963, when it moved to a new location. Today, the American Indian Center continues to offer community programming from its location in Albany Park. The center was initially founded during a time of great change for the Chicago Native community. Native people had been moving to and from Chicago since forced removal in the 1830s, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs's voluntary relocation program (1952-1972) meant that there was a significant increase in Chicago's Native population. In response to this change, a group of organizations including the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Chicago Citizens’ Advisory Board, the American Indian Club, the Indian Council Fire, and the American Friends Service Committee began meeting in July of 1953 with the intention of creating connections between Native Americans moving to the city and the city itself. These meetings and the work of Native people already in the city led to the creation of the All-Tribes American Indian Center, which opened its doors here in late 1953.  At this location, the American Indian Center began hosting annual powwows and formed clubs to facilitate community building in a growing intertribal Chicago Native community. The Canoe Club, the Photography Club, an all Native Boy Scout troop, a day camp, educational services, and job assistance were a few of the many clubs or programs developed in the first decade of the Center. Over the past seventy years, the Center, its leadership, and the Chicago Native community have worked to uphold the legacy of the institution to serve the community and sustain the Center’s mission. It remains one of the oldest American Indian centers in the country.  Proceed south on La Salle Avenue about .2 miles across the LaSalle bridge to the southeast corner. Look back across the bridge to locate the Merchandise Mart building.

Expansive experiences of gender and sexuality have always been a part of Native communities. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, many tribal nations practiced gender and sexual roles more fluidly than those prescribed within European Christian society. While traditions and experiences remain dependent on their tribal contexts, these practices were vast and could include forms of same-sex sexuality, non-heteropatriarchal family structures, and varied gender expression. Some tribes even honored those with an expansive gender identity as sacred keepers of knowledge and spiritual rites—a role often referred to today by the intertribal term, Two-Spirit. This heritage includes nations with ancestral ties to Chicagoland such as the Bodéwadmik (Potawatomi), Ojibweg (Chippewa), and Hoocąk (Ho-Chunk or Winnebago) , whose languages all possess words for Two-Spirit, or third-gender, individuals. With the rise of both the Red Power and the Gay Liberation movements in the early 1960s and 1970s, 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals saw a surge in activism to reassert the importance of their Indigenous and queer identities within and beyond their tribal nations. During the rise of the Gay Liberation movement in the twenty-first century, non-Native activists looked towards the diverse legacy of Indigenous gender and sexuality as a historical validation of queerness. This could often be appropriative as non-Native, LGBTQ activists disconnected Two-Spirit and 2SQ (Two-Spirit, queer) experiences from their cultural contexts to claim non-Native, queer rights— disconnecting the visibility and importance of Indigeneity in these identities. In Chicago’s North Halsted neighborhood, a plaque showcasing “Two-Spirit People” demonstrates this complex relationship. Dedicated in 2012, the plague is part of Chicago’s “Legacy Walk,” a half mile stretch along the North Halsted Street corridor that forms the world’s first and only “outdoor LGBT history museum.” The Legacy Walk includes over 40 bronze, biographical plaques attached to 25 foot rainbow pylons, aiming to highlight lesser known LGBTQ history. The Two-Spirit dedication means to honor Native and First Nations communities alongside Two-Spirit leaders as the “originators” of queer gender identities and sexualities.

The Caroline and Ora Smith Foundation, housed in Chicago, supports opportunities for Native American girls and women in grade school to graduate programs in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Founded by Mary Smith (Cherokee) and named after her mother and grandmother, the organization's overall mission is to facilitate a larger number of Native American women in STEM fields. Although it is based in Chicago and working with its first cohort in Chicago and Milwaukee, the Foundation is working to offer community and culturally specific programming to Native women across the United States.

A full-scale replica of Fort Dearborn was constructed for the 1933 World's Fair. The fort’s blockhouse and barracks were built on the fair's Midway, overlooking Lake Michigan at the end of 26th Street. Fort Dearborn was used as a symbol of the colonial era of Chicago during the 1903 Chicago Centennial Celebration where the first Fort Dearborn replica was constructed. Native actors, along with white actors portraying colonial soldiers and pioneers, were hired for the Fort Dearborn exhibit. While that dynamic reified an adversarial image of Native people, it created a space where local Native people could tell stories directly to fair visitors. Some of the only Indigenous people who lived in Chicago to work at the fair were hired for the Fort Dearborn exhibit. They posed for photos and worked as guides at Fort Dearborn–sharing stories of Indigenous history. To learn more about the role of Fort Dearborn in Chicago’s Indigenous history, see the “Re-Thinking Chicago’s Founding City Story.”

In the centuries following the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the story of this event has been told and retold in various ways, but the most common narratives dehumanize Native people and stoke resentment against them. The term “massacre” comes from one of the earliest published histories of Chicago, Wau-Bun, by Juliette Kinzie in 1856. Kinzie lived in Chicago in the 1830s at the Kinzie mansion which gave credibility to her account of the early days of the American occupation there. Native historians and other scholars disputed her story, but the misnomer stuck. The myth of a “massacre” took on further life during the World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893, when fair commissioners sought to tell a story that cast the city of Chicago as resilient in the face of disaster. The city was just twenty years removed from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and the myth of the “Fort Dearborn Massacre'' provided useful inspiration. The fair’s celebration of the battle as connected to colonialism made the event a fitting place to dedicate The Fort Dearborn Massacre, a monument that once stood in this park, but was removed from public view in 1998. Still, other public commemorations of the battle remain. In 1939, the fourth and final star on the Chicago flag was added symbolizing the “Fort Dearborn Massacre.” These representations and other commemorations of the battle within the built environment of the city cement a story of Indigenous violence within the myth of the city’s founding. Today, historians rely on a bevy of evidence to reconstruct the events of the Battle of Fort Dearborn. Few narratives hold more weight than that of Simon Pokagon’s whose father witnessed the aftermath of the battle. Pokagon’s story gathers multiple accounts from Native people, something Juliette Kinzie’s book failed to do. In his story, the Battle of Fort Dearborn was the result of a conflict between complex political entities who were in open war. And he compares the battle directly to massacres of American Indians committed by US soldiers where there were no survivors.  Representations (and misrepresentations) of Native history and people are present across public art and architecture in Chicago. Other aspects of the built environment feature colonial narratives that marginalize Native people or erase them altogether. On this map, we have selected a examples of iconography to feature, but you can see a full map of many more sites across Chicago here.

Removal did not end the presence of Native people in Chicago or the region. While some of Chicago’s most prominent Native people–such as Archange Ouilmette and Sauganash (Billy Caldwell), removed to reservations West of the Mississippi River. Some fought removal for the rest of their lives. Chechepinquay (Alexander Robinson), who was born Odawa, moved to Chicago after the War of 1812 having lived his entire life on Lake Michigan. He was born to a Odawa mother and a Scottish father at Fort Mackinac after which he grew up in a Potawatomi community on the St. Joseph’s River. Robinson was one of a number of Native people who helped the American survivors of the Battle of Fort Dearborn, and he became involved with the fur trading business in Chicago soon after the War of 1812. He married Archange Ouilmette’s sister Catherine Chevalier (Potawatomi) in 1826. Catherine was the daughter of Marianne (Potawatomi) and François Chevalier and the granddaughter of Potawatomi leader Naunongee, which meant she was connected to one of the most notable Indigenous and fur trade families in the western Great Lakes. Robinson became a significant figure in treaty negotiations in the early 1800s. He was given land and money in three different treaties in 1829, 1832, and finally, at the Treaty of Chicago in 1833. In this final treaty, he received a section of land on the Desplaines River North of Chicago. He and his wife, Catherine Chevalier, lived the rest of his life on this “reservation." He died on April 22, 1872, and his family continued to live on the property until the middle of the twentieth century.

This monument is one of several dedicated to Jesuit Father Jacques Marquette, the first non-Native settler to traverse the Chicago portage in 1673. However he and his party, which included French explorer Louis Jolliet, were guided every step of the way by Native people. Jolliet and Marquette drew maps based on the expertise provided by Odawa people at the Jesuit Mission of St. Ignace on the upper peninsula of Michigan. They were then led by Myaamia guides as they traveled to the Mississippi River via the difficult Wisconsin and Fox River portage. On their way back, Kaskaskia guides led them through the Chicago portage to Lake Michigan. The entire journey would have been impossible without the extensive knowledge of the Native people who had used the portage for generations. In spite of this support, monuments across the city show Marquette leading the journey, while Native guides crouch behind him or turn to the side, in submissive positions. This is one of several depictions of Marquette throughout Chicago, each of which perpetuates a false narrative of the subservience of Native people.  Representations (and misrepresentations) of Native history and people are present across public art and architecture in Chicago. Other aspects of the built environment feature colonial narratives that marginalize Native people or erase them altogether. On this map, we have selected a examples of iconography to feature, but you can see a full map of many more sites across Chicago here.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show was a performance that romanticized the American West and traveled across the United States and Europe between 1883 and 1913. Performers from Pine Ridge (Lakota) traveled the world with the Wild West Shows and were paid well, but the shows dehumanized Native people, depicting them as violent. Bill Cody, the show's founder, tried to have the show included in the 1893 World's Fair. While Cody was eventually able to secure a location just outside of the fairgrounds, he ultimately failed to have the show officially included in the fair because of protests by Native people and anthropologists alike. Activist Henry Standing Bear (Lakota), who had toured with Buffalo Bill, petitioned the Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs asking that Bill Cody’s show not be welcomed on the fairgrounds.

The Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum in Chicago was founded in 1977 after John and Betty Seabury Mitchell donated their collection of Native American artifacts to Kendall College before the museum became its own institution in 2006. It's original name was the Green Bay Trading Co, and until 2024, it was known as the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian. This collection contained objects from tribal nations across North America, leading the initial mission of the museum to focus on the history and diversity of all tribes to match the expansive the collection.  After consulting with Native community members in Chicago and throughout the Great Lakes, the museum adjusted this mission to focus more on the histories of Chicago’s Native community and Tribal Nations in the Great Lakes Region of the United States and Canada. It's 2024 renaming reflects this new focus, and the Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum continues to work alongside other organizations to highlight Native representation in literature, music, and art in its exhibits and projects.

Native peoples from around the United States came to work at the 1933 World's Fair. Many lived and worked in the American Indian Village where they worked as performers. Performers were paid as much as $1.75 per day with children also working for $0.40 per day. The "Winnebago Village" (Ho Chunk) included at least seventy-five Ho Chunk people from Wisconsin. Many had performed before and after at the Wisconsin Dells where performance of Native identity became an ongoing attraction. By 1933, performance of Native identity had become popular outside of the World's Fair in vaudeville and at tourist sites. Performers like Chief Eagle Feather (Cherokee) promoted themselves by creating a perception of authenticity in their work that was popular among audiences.

"The Pioneers" is one of four relief sculptures on each corner of the DuSable bridge. Depicting non-Native settlers who are guided by an angel, it represents the "manifest destiny" mindset that was popular in the 19th century and used to justify settler colonialism. Manifest destiny is the idea that land in the United States was “destined” for the United States’ use and had been set aside for white settlers by God. Under this mindset, Native people did not deserve the land they had because they were not Christian.  Representations (and misrepresentations) of Native history and people are present across public art and architecture in Chicago. Other aspects of the built environment feature colonial narratives that marginalize Native people or erase them altogether. On this map, we have selected a examples of iconography to feature, but you can see a full map of many more sites across Chicago here.

The Chicago American Indian Center was founded in 1953, but has existed in several locations across its history. At each place, it has worked to promote community across Native people living in Chicago, advocate for the welfare of Native people in the city, and sustain and educate others about Native cultural and artistic traditions.

The Chicago Centennial celebration continued much of the excitement of the 1893 World's Fair, held ten years earlier. Unlike the Anthropology exhibits at the World’s Fair, Native people organized their own involvement in the centennial. Forty Potawatomi people from Michigan, forty Ho Chunk people from Wisconsin and Nebraska, Odawa people from Northern Michigan, twenty-five Sauk and Meskwaki people, twenty Menominee people from Northern Wisconsin, and fifty Ojibwe people all gathered to live in Lincoln Park for the festivities. They included prominent figures such as Charles Pokagon, Andrew Blackbird, and Chief Lone Star. All were solicited by T. R. Roddy, the contractor for the American Indian Village on the Midway at the 1893 World’s Fair. The Indigenous people built bark and brush mat lodges in which they stayed during the centennial. At the encampment, Native people gave la crosse, rowing, and house building demonstrations. They staged an attack on a newly constructed replica of the Fort Dearborn block house–an event that never actually happened since the 1812 Battle of Fort Dearborn occurred along the shoreline south of the fort. Unlike at either of the World’s Fairs, the centennial demonstrations were led entirely by Native people. They included speeches by tribal leaders, interpretation, and explanation.

The American Indian Gift Store was among the businesses promoted as “American Indian owned and operated” in the 1982 Chicago American Indian Community Service Directory. Owned by Chee Joe Spencer, a silversmith, it was also listed in the Native American business section in the Chicago Tribune in 1990, demonstrating some acknowledgement of the importance of representation or the continued presence of a Native-owned businesses.

Mark Beaubien built a tavern on the South Side of the river across from Wolf Point. A canoe fairy attached by rope connected the tavern to the houses across the river making it Chicago’s first bridge. He later named it the Sauganash Hotel after Sauganash (Billy Caldwell) a significant Potawatomi leader who helped negotiate the 1829, 1832, and 1833 treaties. Caldwell was born to a Mohawk mother and British father, but was integrated into Potawatomi kinship networks through marriage. He was a skilled negotiator who could successfully work with both Native and American leaders, and he aimed to arrange fair payment and new land for his people in the face of forced removal from the Chicago region. He was given a plot of land in the 1829 treaty on the northwest side of the city that now makes up the Edgebrook and Sauganash neighborhoods, the latter of which bears his name. However, when forced removal came in 1835, he led his people west.

Our tour begins at the site where the "You Are On Potawatomi Land" banner was displayed from 2021 to 2024. We have intentionally started this tour with the present, to emphasize that although Native people were forcibly removed from this place, the many tribes who still consider Chicago to be part of their ancestral homelands, still maintain connections to this place. These include the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Odawa, the many tribes within the Illinois Confederation, and the Myaamia, Ho-Chunk, Sauk, Meskwaki, Menominee, Kickapoo, and Mascouten. This mural, created by Ojibwe artist Andrea Carlson in 2021, highlights these ongoing connections.  Land in Chicago was ceded through four treaties, but the land on which we stand and over which this mural stood did not exist when those treaties we're signed. In fact, the majority of the land east of Michigan avenue did not exist when those treaties were signed, and thus remains unceded. Originally, the Chicago River curved sharply, forming a protective sandbar ideal for canoes and wildlife. But after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the land was extended into the lake, creating new territory that was not covered by the treaties. In 1917, the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi sued for this land, though the Supreme Court ruled against them. A more recent victory occurred in April 2024 when the Prairie Band of Potawatomi reclaimed 130 acres of land in DeKalb County that was illegally sold, marking a significant moment in the ongoing struggle for land justice. The Prairie Band of Potawatomi is the first federally-recognized tribal nation in Illinois.  Proceed north about .1 miles across the DuSable bridge to the northeast corner, where you will see the Discoverers relief. On you way across, notice the other plaque dedicated to Marquette and Joliet.

The Saint Kateri Center of Chicago, named for Native American Saint Kateri Tekakwitha (Mohawk and Algonquin), traces its beginnings to the Anawim Center in Uptown in 1982. Chicago Native American elders, Peggy Des Jarlait (Arikara), Irene Big Eagle (Odawa), Inez Marie Running Bear Dennison (Rosebud Sioux), and others who practiced Catholicism believed that there was a need for a place for Catholic Native people. They requested support from Dominican nuns to establish a center for Catholic Native people to practice their religion while also learning about Native American religious practices. The Archdiocese of Chicago began to sponsor the center in 1987, and after moving to Saint Benedict's Parish in 2010, the Anawim Center became the Saint Kateri Center.

Founded in 2007 by Dr. Dorene Wiese (White Earth Band Ojibwe), the American Indian Association of Illinois (AIAI) is among the most recently Native founded and driven organizations in Chicago. AIAI provides student centered assistance and services for students in public, private, and tribal schools not only in Chicago but throughout the United States. A few of the programs implemented by AIAI include the Medicine Shield Indian School Program, the Black Hawk Performance Company, and the Native American Language Institute. AIAI's leadership is dedicated to grounding the Native youth of the city today in the longstanding activism within Chicago and individual's ties to their tribal nations.  Its leadership under Dr. Wiese and others also connects the organization to institutions that are no longer active, including the Institute of Native American Development (INAD) at Truman College and Native American Educational Services (NAES) College. This connection has grounded IAIA in the goals of many Native driven organizations in Chicago, to provide space for Native students to receive support and make their mark within the rich history of the Native community within the city.

The Midway was separated from the main area of the 1893 World’s Fair, the “White City,” in Jackson Park. It was filled with privately run exhibits popular for their entertainment value as opposed to the state-sponsored exhibits. This is the site of “T. R. Roddy’s American Indian Village.” Ho-Chunk, Potawatomi, and Oceti Sakowin people from Black River Falls, Wisconsin performed here on the Midway during the fair. While other Midway exhibits were known for profiting from dangerous racial stereotypes, the performers at this exhibit reported better treatment and higher pay than the official exhibits. This exhibit demonstrates the complicated experiences that Native people at the 1893 World’s Fair had to navigate.

The home of Archange (Potawatomi) and Antoine Ouilmette was one of many French and Native households in early Chicago. French and American men frequently married Native women as a way of integrating themselves into existing kinship networks, and Native women expanded the connections of their own kin through these marriages. Archange was the daughter of Marianne (Potawatomi) and François Chevalier and the granddaughter of Potawatomi leader Naunongee, which meant she was connected to one of the most notable Indigenous and fur trade families in the western Great Lakes. Though we don’t know very much about the Ouilmette home other than that it neighbored the Kinzie house, we can make educated assumptions about Archange based on what we know about other relationships between French men and Native women. Archange likely served as a translator for her husband Antoine, instructed him on Native protocols, and was his way of integrating into existing Indigenous kinship networks. Many believe Archange was instrumental in helping settlers navigate the constantly fluctuating portage between the Chicago and Des Plaines River. Though the business of leading people through the portage was in her husband’s name, she would have carried that knowledge of the land from generations of Potawatomi people who lived around and used the portage before her. We also know that Archange helped several of the wives of officers at Fort Dearborn through pregnancies and deliveries, and that she personally helped survivors of the Battle of Fort Dearborn to survive in her house by disguising them as Native women. She and her husband worked directly with Indian Agent Alexander Wolcott to acquire support for the Treaty of Chicago in 1833. In the 1829 Treaty of Prairie du Chien, she and her children were given a plot of land on the Northern border of the city that includes parts of the present-day cities Evanston and Wilmette. The Village of Wilmette is named after her family.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs created a replica of an Indian boarding school on the 1893 World’s Fair grounds. The United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs Thomas Morgan saw the fair as an opportunity to promote Indian boarding schools to the world. He saw the Indian school and anthropology exhibits as contrasting images that illustrated his white supremacist ideology regarding Indigenous people, stating: “the new \[the indian school building exhibit] and the old \[the Anthropology exhibit] can be sharply contrasted and though the old may attract popular attention by its picturesqueness the new will impress the thoughtful with the hopefulness of the outlook and the wisdom, as well as fairness, of extending to the weaker the helpful hand of the stronger race.”  Morgan’s patriarchal vision of Indian boarding schools worked in tandem with the Anthropology exhibit overseen by Harvard Anthropologist Frederic Putnam to advance the racist policy of the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the Indian school building exhibit, school children pretended to take classes and perform school activities. They were not paid for their performances. Infamous Carlisle Institute leader Richard Pratt refused to bring his students to the exhibit because of its association with anthropologists, who he saw as opposing his assimilationist vision.

This mural, titled "Indians Cede the Land" is one of hundreds of WPA murals across Chicagoland, many of which depict Native people. WPA (The Works Progress Administration) murals were a part of the New Deal program under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Murals like this allow passerby to quickly take in the story and narrative which they display. Typically showing the development of the U.S. from early interactions with Indigenous peoples, western expansion, and modern industry, these murals include Native people but strip them of all information which would make them significant to U.S. or Indigenous history. Rather than capture the complicated history of Indigenous-settler interactions and the transformation of Native land, this mural reduces it to an easily digestible story of progress. By commemorating Indigenous peoples as only located in the past or at a particular point wherein they encountered European settlers, the murals erase Indigenous peoples, or position conquest and removal as a necessary developmental step in the unfolding of U.S. history.  Representations (and misrepresentations) of Native history and people are present across public art and architecture in Chicago. Other aspects of the built environment feature colonial narratives that marginalize Native people or erase them altogether. On this map, we have selected a examples of iconography to feature, but you can see a full map of many more sites across Chicago here.

In 2019 Santiago X (or X) was commissioned by the Chicago Public Art Group and The American Indian Center of Chicago to pay homage to the original inhabitants of Illinois. X is an indigenous futurist artist and a citizen of the Coushatta of Louisiana and CHarmoru from the island of Guam. Coiled Serpent will be an effigy mound made in collaboration with various artisans and community members, such as Nilay Mistry (landscape artist), and honors the ancestral practice of mound building by using soil from various tribal lands. It will be located in Horner Park by the Chicago riverfront.  Pokto Cinto and Coiled Serpent Mound are the two ends of the forthcoming Northwest Portage Walking Museum which aims to show the connection between indigenous cultures in Chicago and the land on which Chicago stands. On its completion Coiled Serpent will be a start/end point of a nine mile museum trail which discusses indigenous cultures within the Chicago urban space.

Native American Educational Services, Inc. was founded in 1974 by the Native American Committee (NAC), an activist group that focused its efforts towards assisting Native people in Chicago with education. NAES was the first Native-controlled private college to offer a four-year degree, and it partnered with Antioch College to be able to offer an accredited baccalaureate program that still allowed Native community members to retain control over the school’s admissions, policies, and coursework. As a part of its growth NAES opened study sites for its students on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, Fort Peck Reservation, Santo Domingo Reservation, Menominee Reservation, and in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. NAES’s model combined coursework with work in community in order to prepare students to work for Native organizations and positively impact Native people, and graduates of the college were and continue to be leaders in the Chicago Native community and within their tribal nations.  After losing accreditation in 2005, NAES College became affiliated with Eastern Illinois University to support Native American students who sought higher education. After this collaboration ended, the organization adapted to its current form as Native American Educational Services, Inc. and continues to promote community-based education while collaborating with the American Indian Association of Illinois.

The Native American Committee (NAC) first formed in 1969 within the American Indian Center to support activism connected to and within the Red Power Movement in Native American communities throughout the United States and Chicago. One of their first actions that received attention from non-Native media was a sit-in at the Bureau of Indian Affairs Chicago Field Office on March 24, 1970 in solidarity with the second Occupation of Alcatraz by the Indians of All-Tribes and to protest Chicago-specific issues including housing, education, and jobs.  Members of NAC formally separated the organization from the American Indian Center after disagreements on leadership and the direction of the Center after the death of its director Robert Rietz in 1972. After this separation, NAC dedicated itself to focusing on improving the quality and cultural grounding of Native education in Chicago through the establishment of three different Native education institutions. These included Little Bighorn High School (LBHS), O-Wai-Ya-Wa Elmentary School, and the Native American Educational Services (NAES) College in 1974.  NAC leadership also extended the services they provided to the community through a newsletter called the Red Letter,  but the grounding of NAC came from a coalition of younger and older generations of Native community members that prioritized educational programming. The legacy of NAC is still felt today through the impact of NAES College and the rich archives it has left in the care of the University of Illinois in Chicago and the American Indian Association of Illinois.

The Chicago American Indian Center was created in 1953, at a time of great change for the Chicago Native community. Native peoples had been moving to and from Chicago since forced removal in the 1830s, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs's voluntary relocation program (1952-1972) meant that there was a significant increase in Chicago's Native population. In response to this change, a group of organizations including the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Chicago Citizens’ Advisory Board, the American Indian Club, the Indian Council Fire, and the American Friends Service Committee began meeting in July of 1953 with the intention of creating connections between Native Americans moving to the city and the city itself. These meetings and the work of Native people already in the city led to the creation of the All-Tribes American Indian Center, which opened its doors in a rented space on LaSalle Drive in late 1953.  At the LaSalle location the American Indian Center began hosting annual powwows and formed clubs to facilitate community building in a growing intertribal Chicago Native community. The Canoe Club, the Photography Club, an all Native Boy Scout troop, a day camp, educational services, and job assistance were a few of the many clubs or programs developed in the first decade of the Center. Leaders within the American Indian Center and the Chicago Native community including Ben Bearskin, Frank Fastwolf, Tom Greenwood, Dorothy Holstein, Robinson Johnson, Willard LaMere, and many others participated in the planning for the famed Chicago American Indian Conference in July 1961 at the University of Chicago. The conference drew Native activists from across country to Chicago and resulted in drafting The Declaration of Indian Purpose, a document outlining the needs and priorities of Native communities that was delivered to President Kennedy.  In 1963, the center moved to North Broadway for several years, before moving to Uptown on West Wilson Avenue in 1967. Here the Center continued to host annual powwows, hold gatherings, develop programs, and participate in activism that asserted the presence of Native peoples in the city. In 2017, the American Indian Center moved out of Uptown and into its current location in Albany Park.   Over the past seventy years, the Center, its leadership, and the Chicago Native community have worked to uphold the legacy of the institution to serve the community and sustain the Center’s mission. It remains one of the oldest American Indian centers in the country.

On August 18th, 1835, roughly 5,000 Potawatomi converged at the Agency House to receive their final annuity payment from the 1833 Treaty of Chicago. At the conclusion of this meeting, the Potawatomi began singing and drumming, and approximately 800 began to dance as a procession formed.  With their hair done in a roached style and “decorated with a profusion of hawk’s and eagle’s feathers, some strung together so as to extend nearly to the ground,” Potawatomi mourners began dancing with their weapons in-hand as myriad more beat drums, sticks, and other hollow objects together. Judge John Dean Caton, a resident of Chicago at the time of the procession, recounted before an audience 35 years later at the Chicago Historical Society. As Caton writes, “\[f]oreheads, cheeks, and noses were covered with curved stripes of red vermilion, which were edged with black points… \[they were] principally armed with tomahawks and clubs… \[and] were led (sic) by what answered for a band of music…”  From the Council House they marched west, dancing as they moved along the Chicago riverfront “stopping in front of every house they passed,” before crossing the North Branch of the river. After crossing the bridge, the procession made its way south before again crossing the South Branch on the Corduroy Bridge (located roughly at the site of the present-day Lake street bridge). As they crossed, the procession halted in front of the Sauganash Hotel as its patrons stared in awe. The processioners continued to dance, and from the hotel windows, Caton stated that he and the other patrons could see the entirety of the procession as it snaked across the South Branch back up to the North Branch bridge. Caton and other onlookers misinterpreted this procession as a “war dance,” but in fact, it was a mourning procession that served as a visible act of defiance against Chicago’s alleged “founders.” It illustrates that Neshnabé people did not willingly cede the land on Lake Michigan’s shores. It was taken from them, and they protested their loss.

Andrea Carlson’s mural along the Chicago rivier waterfront reminds us “Bodéwadmikik ėthë yéyék/You are on Potawatomi Land.” Created in June 2021 and displayed until 2024, Carlson’s (oil on canvas) mural spanned across five banners and measured 15 feet high and 266 feet long. The land beneath the banner is part of Chicago's lakefill: land that was added to the original lakeshore beginning in the 19th century, after treaties ceding the land up to the lake were signed. Because this land did not exist when the treaties were signed, it remains unceded. In 1917, the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi sued the city for this land, in a case (Williams v. City of Chicago) that went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled against the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi.  In light of the 2020 protests which removed two Christopher Columbus from Chicago, and inspired by the Williams v. City of Chicago (1917), Carlson wanted to create a reminder and declaration of the original inhabitants and their ongoing presence within Chicago. This mural, not only created by a Native artist, but also in community with the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, draws attention to the man-made lakefront as a breach of the treaty agreement. By declaring and reminding audiences that we are on Potawatomi land, Carlson pulls us to recognize that we reside not only on land which was stolen but also that colonial occupation continues today. By placing “You are on Potawatomi Land” in the present tense, she stresses that Indigenous people retain their connections to this place and perpetually belong here.  Representations (and misrepresentations) of Native history and people are present across public art and architecture in Chicago. Other aspects of the built environment feature colonial narratives that marginalize Native people or erase them altogether. On this map, we have selected a examples of iconography to feature, but you can see a full map of many more sites across Chicago here.  There is a duplicate point for this site on the Downtown Walking Tour

The Agency House is where the US government engaged with Native people, especially regarding past treaties. This is where the Native signers of past treaties such as the 1829 Treaty of Prairie du Chien collected annuity payments for land ceded. Chicago’s first Indian Agent, Charles Jouett, moved his family into the Agency House in 1805. The Jouett family employed a Pottawatomi woman, Nokenoqua, as a housekeeper and held at least one enslaved person in bondage there. Alexander Wolcott was appointed as Indian Agent in 1817. It is believed that Wolcott worked with Antoine Ouilmette to recruit Alexander Robinson to negotiate the three treaties in 1829, 1832, and 1833 that lead to the removal of Anishinaabe and the official founding of Chicago as an American city.

There were a number of cabins and taverns on Wolfe Point because this area was relatively dry compared to the lakeside buildings. These homes and businesses were owned by both Native and non-Native people, including Alexander Robinson, or Che-che-pin-quay. Robinson was born to an Odawa mother and Scottish father, so like Billy Caldwell, he excelled at navigating both Native and American worlds and was a key negotiator in the 1829, 1832, and 1833 treaties. He married Archange Oulimette’s sister Catherine Chevalier (Potawatomi) in 1826. Catherine was the daughter of Marianne (Potawatomi) and François Chevalier and the granddaughter of Potawatomi leader Naunongee, which meant she was connected to one of the most notable Indigenous and fur trade families in the western Great Lakes. Their home and trading post had frequent visits from Native people like Billy Caldwell until the 1833 Treaty of Chicago forced them out of the area. As part of the 1829 treaty, a plot of land was reserved for Robinson on the Des Plaines River where he moved in the 1830s and lived until 1872. It was the only Potawatomi “reservation” in the area in the post-removal period. His family remained connected to the land until the mid-1900s.

The historic Green Mill Lounge located in Uptown Chicago has a legacy connected to its place in the city during Prohibition, its ties to Al Capone and his associates, and performances by stars of the Jazz Age. But this history also has ties to the Native community in the city. Its poetry slam nights attracted writers and performers from around the city, including Native writers and poets. E. Donald Two-Rivers (Ojibwe) became involved in these poetry nights as he became involved with institutions in the Native community and the poetry scene in Chicago. The Green Mill also held weekly poetry slams that were sponsored by the Red Path Theatre, founded in part by Two-Rivers in the 1990s. Two-Rivers also held a book release party at the Green Mill for his first book A Dozen Cold Ones in 1992, and remained connected to the establishment through his work with Red Path Theatre Company and the lounge's long-term ties to artists in Chicago.

As seen in this relief sculpture, French explorer Louis Jolliet and Jesuit priest Father Jacques Marquette, are often credited with discovering Chicago in 1673. However, Native people had been living at and traveling through Chicago for centuries before their arrival. Likewise, their journey through the Chicago portage, a critical link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed, was made possible with the assistance of Native guides. Jolliet and Marquette drew maps based on the expertise provided by Odawa people at the Jesuit Mission of St. Ignace on the upper peninsula of Michigan. They were then led by Myaamia guides as they traveled to the Mississippi River via the difficult Wisconsin and Fox River portage. It was Native people they encountered near the convergence of the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers who told them about the Chicago portage, and Kaskaskia people (of the larger Illinois Confederation) that led them safely through the portage.  Despite their significant reliance on Indigenous knowledge and assistance, the legacy of Jolliet and Marquette often overshadows the leadership and contributions of Native people. In representations like this one, Marquette and Jolliet are centered and appear to be leading, while Native people cower behind or below them in subservient positions.  Proceed north a short distance to the bust of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable in Pioneer Court.

Chicago is, and has always been a Native place. However, many traditional tours of the city continue to erase, or misrepresent Indigenous history. This walking tour takes users across more than five centuries of Native history, connecting Indigenous people to some of Chicago's most famous landmarks, and recentering Native people and perspectives where they have been erased or marginalized. The tour is approximately 2 miles and will take about 1.5 hours to complete. It begins at the southeast corner of DuSable Bridge and ends at the "Defense" relief sculpture, on the southwest corner of DuSable Bridge.

The Chicago American Indian Community Collaborative (CAICC) was established in 2012 and consists of fifteen Native American organizations and programs that are focused on “improving conditions for Native Americans in the Chicago area.” CAICC was founded to create cohesion across the many organizations that serve the Native community and provide a unified voice in a city where Native perspectives are often ignored and invisible. From its beginning, CAICC has established goals to meet the current and future needs of Native Americans who continue to call Chicago home and to sustain connections to Chicago’s Native past.  Today, CAICC maintains four subcommittees that attend to pressing issues for the Chicago Native community. Among the organization's greatest accomplishments include: hosting an annual Education Conference that brings together leaders in Native education from across the nation; holding two Native American Summits in 2022 and 2024 at the state capitol to call attention to community priorities; and assisting in the passage of two state bills: HB1633, which mandates the teaching of Native history in K-12 classrooms, and SB1446, which ensures that Native students are allowed to wear culturally significant regalia at graduation ceremonies.

Carlos Montezuma was a Yavapai Apache physician who lived from 1866 to 1923. He graduated from high school, college, and medical school in Illinois, and established his medical practice in Chicago in 1896. While we do not know if this location at 100 N State Street was his home or his office, the majority of his correspondence was directed to this address.  Having worked as a physician for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA, Montezuma saw how the federal system failed to fully address the needs of Native people. He was among those in the early 20th century who believed in the need to abolish the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA. Montezuma published a newsletter called Wassaja that frequently critiqued the BIA, and he was a founder of a national advocacy organization called the Society of American Indians (SAI). SAI, was a national intertribal advocacy group for Indigenous rights in the early 1900s. Members were often middle class Native professionals like Carlos Montezuma. While there were different opinions within the organization, SAI members often believed that some amount of assimilation into white society was necessary for Native people to be successful. Others outside of the SAI (and some within it) did not believe assimilation was the answer.  Proceed north three blocks north on State, stopping in front of the Chicago Theatre (.3 miles).

The portage between the Chicago and Des Plaines Rivers served as an important piece of infrastructure for Native peoples long before European settlers arrived in the region. The portage was often called “Mud Lake” because of the way it fluctuated between marsh and dry land over the changing seasons. Called the Portage des Chenes, or “Portage of the Oaks,” by the French, it was one of two portages that connected the Mississippi River watershed to Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes via the Illinois River (the other portage was between the Des Plaines River and the Calumet River). These portages allowed Native people to travel and trade throughout the region for millennia. Louis Jolliet and Jesuit Father Jacques Marquette, the first European settlers to traverse the Indigenous portage in 1673, were guided every step of the way by Native people. Jolliet and Marquette drew maps based on the expertise provided by Odawa people at the Jesuit Mission of St. Ignace on the upper peninsula of Michigan. They were then led by Myaamia guides as they traveled to the Mississippi River via the difficult Wisconsin and Fox River portage. On their way back, Kaskaskia guides led them through the Chicago portage to Lake Michigan. The entire journey would have been impossible without the extensive knowledge of the Native people who had used the portage for generations. In spite of this support, the monuments at the site today (one of which is pictured here) show Marquette leading the journey, while the Native guide crouches behind him, in a submissive position. This is one of several depictions of Marquette and Jolliet throughout Chicago, each of which perpetuates a false narrative of the subservience of Native people.

The Bo-Sho-Nee-Gee Drop-In Center was created by St. Augustine’s Center for American Indians in 1973 to expand on the services they could provide to the Native community. Administrators, case workers, and other leadership within St. Augustine’s saw the need for a program to help individuals struggling with alcoholism and addiction. Bo-Sho-Nee-Gee began as a program to combat one issue within the community, but it soon expanded to provide other services including meals and counseling. Its efforts towards food security for community members also included students from the Institute of Native American Development (INAD) who received assistance while attending Truman College.

When Amundson-Mayfair City College was moved to Uptown in 1973 and renamed Harry S. Truman college, it displaced Native American and other families as housing was demolished to construct the college. However, after opening its doors to students in 1976, administrators worked to connect with the diverse community in Uptown and worked with Native People to create space in the college, supporting Natives who wanted to attend the school through initiatives like the Institute of Native American Development and the Red Path Theatre. Today Truman College still serves the Uptown community. 

This beautiful bricolage mosaic mural was created in 2009 by Cynthia Weiss, Tracy Van Duinen, and Todd Osborne after being commissioned by 48th Ward Alderman Mary Ann Smith. Prior to its construction, Weiss, Duinen and Todd facilitated community discussions with various Native community members and organizations in Chicago to discuss how they want to be represented. These discussions spanned across two years before the current design was solidified. The location of the mural was also selected deliberately for how roads like Rodgers, Broadway, and even the general area around the mural’s location, were all former Native trails.  The mural is intended to represent the past and current Native American community in Chicago, but deliberately avoided generalizing “Indian culture.” The imagery on the mural seeks to connect generations of the Indigenous community by incorporating figures from traditional culture alongside ‘gaps’ in the mural in which mirror fragments allow the viewer to reflect how they too occupy a part within this greater art piece and community.   The mural’s name was inspired by Ojibwe artist E. Donald “Eddy” Two-Rivers’ poem “Indian Land Dancing.” Learn more about E. Donald Two-Rivers here.  Representations (and misrepresentations) of Native history and people are present across public art and architecture in Chicago. Other aspects of the built environment feature colonial narratives that marginalize Native people or erase them altogether. On this map, we have selected a examples of iconography to feature, but you can see a full map of many more sites across Chicago here.

People from all over the world gathered for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, or the 1893 World’s Fair, and that included many Native peoples from around the country. Like most people at the fair, many Indigenous people traveled there to work, to perform, or to sell goods. Others protested the fair. Simon Pokagon wrote the pamphlet critical of the fair, "A Red Man's Rebuke" (later "A Red Man's Greeting") on birchbark and distributed it at the fair. Upon reading it, Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison requested that Pokagon become involved with some ceremonial aspects of the fair. This included Pokagon riding on a float on "Chicago Day" and performing in a tableau of him signing the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, which his father had actually signed 60 years earlier. Harrison then accepted the treaty at a ceremony attended by 70,000 people in front of the "Columbian Liberty Bell." Pokagon wrote a speech for the event in which he gave his vision for the future of Indigenous people in America. Using his new-found publicity from the World’s Fair, Pokagon became a prominent activist for Indigenous rights before he died in 1899.

In 1833, representatives from the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Odawa nations were called to Chicago to negotiate additional land cessions in the Midwest. In the 18th and 19th centuries, land cessions from Indigenous nations were made through treaties (legal agreements) with the U.S. federal government. These treaties were often negotiated at established meeting places like Chicago and are not necessarily named for the land that is being ceded.Such is the case for the 1833 Treaty of Chicago which ceded land tracts in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin and orchestrated the forced removal of Neshnabé people from 8 million acres of land in what are now the states of Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.  The US was not at war with the Neshnabé people, but they took advantage of the outrage over the Black Hawk War to force a treaty with them, passing a law that allowed commissioners to purchase all the remaining land held by Neshnabé people in the lower Lake Michigan area. In September of 1833, hundreds of Neshnabé people arrived in Chicago to negotiate the cession of land. They built massive encampments around Fort Dearborn and lived there the month before finally meeting with US Commissioners on September 21 for negotiations across the river from the fort.  The treaty was signed on September 26, and it began another migration into the city. Knowing that Neshnabé leaders would soon be receiving their treaty payments, hundreds of American traders from the midwest descended on the city to collect on supposed debts they claimed from Native people. These creditors made up $175,000 of the almost $1,000,000 listed in the treaty. In the cash-poor economy of the Midwest, these payments were a massive influx of federal dollars into the region.  Over the next decade, Neshnabé people were removed from the 8 million acres of land in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan in a fragmented and abusive way over the course of nearly a dozen different removals. At least 5 of these removals began at or crossed through the Chicagoland area. You can explore these routes further in the project’s Removal Map.

Shab-eh-nay was Odawa and was born in what is now known as Michigan. He traveled to what is now Illinois with two Odawa spiritual leaders when he was young, and during his time there, married the daughter of Potawatomi leader Spotka, who lived in a large village on the Illinois River. After Spotka died, Shab-eh-nay became a village leader.  As Shawnee leader Tecumseh worked to unite Native people against increasing American encroachment on Native lands in the first decade of the 19th century, Shab-eh-nay was very influenced by his messages. He welcomed Tecumseh into his village and accompanied him in his travels to other Odawa, Potawatomi, Sauk, and Ho-Chunk villages.  In spite of his alliance with Tecumseh, Shab-eh-nay protected the white Kinzie family after the Battle of Fort Dearborn, alongside Black Partridge, Che-che-pin-quay (Alexander Robinson), Sauganash (Billy Caldwell), and Waubansee. The Kinzies had been living according to Native protocols and kinship with Native communities at Chicago, unlike other settlers who were invading Native territories.   Shab-eh-nay signed the Treaties of St. Louis (1816), Prairie du Chien (1829), and Chicago (1833) in order to protect his village. Like Chechepinquay (Alexander Robinson), Shab-eh-nay stayed on land that had been reserved for him in treaties, traveling between these lands and his community further west. However, Shab-eh-nay’s land was illegally sold.  In 2024, part of Shab-eh-nay's reservation was placed into trust for Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. It is the only federally recognized Tribal Nation in Illinois. This village is one of many across what is now northeastern IL. For a full map of village sites in the Chicagoland area, please visit our Village Site Map.

During the summer of 1832, Sauk leader Black Hawk and his community of mostly women and children returned to their ancestral homeland in northern Illinois from Iowa Indian Territory. Having faced severe oppression and the destruction of their crops in Iowa, Black Hawk and his followers returned home to plant corn. Neshnabé peoples were split over whether to support Black Hawk’s defiance of U.S. removal orders. Some housed and sheltered his people; others saw him as a threat to their already tenuous relationship with the Americans, and worried that an alliance with him would lead to their forced removal without compensation. Over the course of the summer, the fear and resentment already present among settlers since the War of 1812 built to a fever pitch. The State of Illinois formed a militia to hunt Black Hawk joined by settlers like Abraham Lincoln but also Neshnabé people like Billy Caldwell and Alexander Robinson. In the end, General Winfield Scott brought American troops from Virginia to hunt Black Hawk. His troops pursued the band and routed them back to the Mississippi River where they were massacred while trying to flee. This conflict has come to be known as the Black Hawk War. During the months of conflict, Neshnabé people and settlers alike fled to Chicago in fear of being caught up in the conflict. Others were ordered to leave their homes and go to the refugee camp to avoid being identified as “hostile Indians” and killed. Many of these refugees camped as close as possible to Fort Dearborn as they waited for the US military to arrive. When Winfield Scott’s troops arrived in July, they brought cholera to Chicago for the first time, a water-born disease that would kill thousands of Chicagoans over the course of the 1800s. The refugees camping outside of Fort Dearborn faced danger from both war and disease. Though the events of the Black Hawk War occurred outside Chicago, the war had a significant impact on the subsequent removal of Neshnabé people and the founding of Chicago. American leaders used the violence of the war as justification for why all Native people must be removed and threatened that if Neshnabé people did not negotiate treaties for removal, they could face violence. In the wake of the recent massacre of Black Hawk’s community, Native leaders knew these threats to be sincere.  There is a duplicate point for this site on the Downtown Walking Tour

This exhibit, named a racial epithet during the 1893 World's Fair, became known for the treatment of the Inuit performers and their successful protest of their conditions. Promoter P.M. Daniels forced them to perform in warm clothing on hot days. When some protested, they were locked in and confined. Locals petitioned the courts successfully to have the Inuit people liberated from the camp for being held against their will, but they still needed a clandestine escape at night with the help of a Moravian Minister. After escaping, some ended up staging their own exhibit on Stony Island Blvd. outside of the fair.

Founded in the 1970s, the Native American Support Program (NASP) at the University of Illinois Chicago supports the success of Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Native Pacific Islander students academically and culturally. This support comes from the program’s origin and administrators from within the Chicago Native community who have had first-hand experience with the issues Native students face while attending college.

Prior to Jean Baptiste Point du Sable’s arrival in Chicago sometime in the 1780s, Native people long used what is now called Chicago as a hub for trade. DuSable, likely born before 1750 in what is now the nation of Haiti, was a newcomer in this established Native world. In order to join that existing trade network, he had to integrate himself into existing relational networks (often called kinship) and build trust with Native people. To do so, he married Kitihawa, a Potawatomi woman who would become essential in his ability to safely and successfully trade and travel through the region.  It is likely that Kitihawa would have instructed him about Indigenous protocols for trade. She also probably served as a translator and language instructor for his conversations with other traders (which would mostly have been conducted in Neshnabémwen, the language of the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Odawa people).  Together, they built a home and trading post here in 1789, making the mouth of the Chicago River an even more valuable trading site that rivaled those on the St. Joseph River and at Kekionga (near present-day Fort Wayne, IN). In 1800, the house was acquired by John Kinzie, a fur trader of Scots-Irish descent born in Quebec City, and by 1831, it included as many as five rooms, a front green space, and a small farm in the back with a dairy, bake-house, lodging-house, and stables. Though the Northwest Ordinance outlawed slavery, the Kinzies kept enslaved people in bondage on the property. When the War of 1812 made the Chicago trading post untenable, the Kinzies abandoned it. Another Potawatomi woman, Archange Ouillemette, lived next door and managed the farm and property before the Kinzies returned after the war.  There is a duplicate point for this site on the Downtown Walking Tour

St. Augustine’s Center for American Indians was founded by Father Peter John Powell in 1961 after he began assisting Native people who had moved to Chicago through the Bureau of Indian Affairs's Voluntary Urban Relocation program (1952-1972). Powell started providing this assistance out of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church on Chicago’s West Side in the mid-1950s, and prior to this, he had been involved with the American Indian Center as both a supporter and member of the board of directors.  St. Augustine’s began as a series of assistance programs and in its first few years handled over 10,000 cases that included grocery, employment, lodging, clothing, and general assistance for Native families or individuals. It also provided tutoring and cultural programs. After Father Powell resigned from the position of Director of St. Augustine’s in 1971, the position was taken up by members of the Chicago Native community. Board members and directors included Matthew Pilcher (Ho-Chunk), Amy Skenandore (Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican), Elmira McClure (Ojibwe), and Arlene R. Williams (Oneida). Under Amy Skenandore (Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican), Bo-Sho-Ne-Gee Drop-In Center was founded under the umbrella of service provided by St. Augustine's to assist community members struggling with addiction and food security. St. Augustine’s also continued to assist people in receiving healthcare and sponsored community events like baby showers. St. Augustine’s continued to serve the Chicago Native community until 2006. When it closed, it had served over 6,000 Native families.