The [Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum](https://gichigamiin-museum.org/) 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.

Founded in 2007 by Dr. Dorene Wiese (White Earth Band Ojibwe), the [American Indian Association of Illinois (AIAI)](https://www.chicago-american-indian-edu.org/) 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 Wiese and others also connects the organization to institutions that are no longer active, including the Institute of Native American Development (INAD) at Truman College and Native American Educational Services (NAES) College.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.

[Native American Educational Services](https://naes.info/), 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. 

By the 1893 World’s Fair, Sitting Bull (Lakota) was a national celebrity. He had defeated Custer's forces in the Battle of Little Bighorn. He was then forced to go on tour with Bill Cody's Wild West Shows where he was paid fifty dollars a week as a performer. He was murdered by police in a raid three years before the World's Fair, but this building purporting to be his “cabin” was an attempt to profit from his image.

The [Newberry Library](https://www.newberry.org/) is a cultural institution whose collections and exhibitions offer a portal to more than six centuries of human history. Among its many collections, the Newberry is home to the [Edward E. Ayer American Indian and Indigenous Studies Collection](https://www.newberry.org/collection/subjects/american-indian-and-indigenous-studies), which includes thousands of print and manuscript materials related to American Indian and Indigenous people. The collection includes content on Indigenous people in North and South America from pole to pole, coast to coast, and beyond into the Pacific. In 1972, Métis author and activist D'Arcy McNickle helped found the Center for the History of the American Indian at the library, which aimed to promote the research of Native American history, increase access to the collection for Native communities, and revise the ways Native peoples had been misrepresented in these histories. The center was later renamed the [D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies](https://www.newberry.org/research/research-centers/mcnickle-center), and has provided training to graduate students and presented public programming and project, often in collaboration with the Chicago Native community. Several of its current projects aim toward expanding the accessibility of its collections to tribal communities and collaborating with the Native communities to align with Native perspectives, knowledge systems, and cultural practices. Merge this text with the above: Initially founded in 1972 as the Center for the History of the American Indian, the D’Arcy McMickle Center was established to promote the research of Native American history and revise the ways Native peoples have been misrepresented in these histories. Located within the Newberry Library in Chicago it is named after Salish Kootenai activist, writer, and its first director D’Arcy McNickle. Since its founding the Center has provided training in American Indian and Indigenous Studies to students and presented public programming for the Chicago Native community. Several of its current projects aim toward expanding the accessibility of its collections to tribal communities and collaborating with the Native communities to align with Native perspectives, knowledge systems, and cultural practices.

The [Chicago American Indian Center](https://aicchicago.org/) 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 American Indian Center](https://aicchicago.org/) 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 center moved to this Wilson Avenue location after Verna Ewen bequeathed money for the building's purchase after her death. In its first year (under Leroy Wesaw as director) the address was sometimes given as 4605 N Paulina Street.

In the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis, the Odawak, Ojibweg, and Potawatomi ceded a [twenty mile wide strip on the western boundary of Lake Michigan](https://felt.com/map/Chicago-Treaty-Map-I7TKoJcaQpyBgCJuz5CKKC?loc=42.145,-86.295,6.11z&share=1), ten miles north and ten miles south of the Chicago River as well as a strip of land extending to the Fox River. This treaty established the Indian Boundary Line, an invisible line that Indigenous people had to move their villages north of; but they still retained the right to hunt and fish on the ceded land. The Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi people who negotiated this treaty were hungry and in dire need of supplies due to the War of 1812 and decreasing amounts of game in the region. They agreed to this treaty in exchange for commitments from settlers to provide $1000 worth of much-needed goods annually for twelve years. In 1937, the city established this plaque at the intersection of Rogers Ave and Clark St. to commemorate the treaty. 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](https://felt.com/map/Iconography-Map-5qLDiEuoRFanMm87gPzO7C?loc=41.9384,-87.9581,10.99z&share=1).

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](https://felt.com/map/Iconography-Map-5qLDiEuoRFanMm87gPzO7C?loc=41.9384,-87.9581,10.99z&share=1).

When Fort Dearborn was built in 1803, it was a military outpost in a landscape still occupied and controlled by Native people. The fort sat across the Chicago River from the fur trading post and was built within only six square miles of land that had been ceded in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. All other land surrounding those six miles was still owned by Native people until future treaty cessions in 1816. In the decade after the fort was built, Neshnabé people living in the area began to increasingly see it as a threat to their land and lifeways. These groups contested the Treaty of Greenville and argued that no representatives from Chicago were present at the treaty signing, and they grew increasingly frustrated with white settlers who had begun to farm the land and disrupt the environment that Native people had long maintained. These tensions erupted in the Battle of Fort Dearborn. After the battle, Fort Dearborn was raided for what supplies had not been destroyed and the building was burned to the ground. The Neshnabé people who lived and traded in the area continued to do so with some non-Native relatives. Beyond the mouth of the river, the labor of the Potawatomi, Odawa Sauk, Ho-Chunk, Myaamia, and Kickapoo people made the fur industry in the city immensely profitable. When the Americans returned to Chicago in 1816 and rebuilt Fort Dearborn, they once again entered an already thriving market.

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.

The [Caroline and Ora Smith Foundation](https://www.carolineorasmithfoundation.org/), 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.

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](https://collections.newberry.org/asset-management/2KXJ8ZSQGHBQS?&WS=SearchResults)* 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).*

Founded by Donald 'Eddy' Two-Rivers and Beverly Moeser in the early 1990s, the Red Path Theatre Company originated within the Institute of Native American Development at Truman College. It wrote, produced, and performed plays in Truman College’s theater and in theaters through the Midwest. It was the only Native American owned theater company in Chicago throughout the 1990s, and sponsored Native art and cultural events such as the First Nations Annual Film and Video Festival. They promoted Chicago as a place Native art was created and appreciated. 

The Battle of Fort Dearborn did not occur at the fort, but on the shores of Lake Michigan, on August 15, 1812. It ended in the death of more than fifty American soldiers, women, and children and fifteen Potawatomi fighters. The violence is often included in stories of Chicago’s founding, but rarely do these narratives include the larger context of which the battle was one part. In June of 1812, Shawnee leader Tecumseh was coordinating an intertribal resistance movement against American invasion, and he and his allies laid out a plan to attack several American forts later that summer: Fort Madison in present-day Iowa, Fort Wayne and Fort Harrison in present-day Indiana, and Fort Dearborn at Chicago. The attacks would be coordinated through wampum belts, small beads made from shells that were strung together to record histories and communicate messages. However, as Tecumseh and his allies made plans, war broke out between the Americans and the British. In the midst of this colonial conflict, many Native leaders, including Tecumseh and Chicago Potawatomi leader Main Poc, chose to ally with the British, hoping that the defeat of the Americans would stop the increasing flood of white settlers into Native lands. Knowing this, the commander of Fort Dearborn, Captain Nathan Heald, organized a meeting with Potawatomi leaders on August 15, 1812 to negotiate the American surrender of the fort and secure their safe passage to Fort Wayne (in modern-day Indiana). They came to an agreement, but the US forces instantly went back on their word and destroyed the supplies they had agreed to distribute to the Potawatomi. The night before the battle, a wampum belt was delivered to Potawatomi leader Mad Sturgeon signaling war should begin. Since those at Fort Dearborn had been ordered to evacuate the next day, it was an ideal time to attack the American garrison and the betrayal by Heald had further angered Potawatomi leadership.On the morning of the evacuation from the fort, Potawatomi fighters, along with Kickapoo, Sauk, and Ho-Chunk allies, attacked the convoy of American soldiers, civilians, and their Myaamia allies who were leaving the fort. Until very recently, Chicagoans have mistakenly called the events that followed a massacre, but most historians now call it the Battle of Fort Dearborn, in part because of its place within the larger War of 1812 and Tecumseh’s resistance movement.

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*

Our final stop on this walking tour is the Defense, a sculpture representing the Battle of Fort Dearbon, which is an event that looms large in the collective memory of Chicago. Represented by one of the four stars on Chicago's flag, the Battle has been positioned as a "founding moment" in the city's history. However, before discussing the battle, it's important to understand the context of Fort Dearborn, a military outpost built in 1803. Though the fort no longer stands, plaques on the ground around you show the outline of where the fort once stood. When the fort was built, it existed within only six square miles of land that had been ceded in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. In the decade after the fort was built, Neshnabé (Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Odawa) people living in the area began to increasingly see it as a threat to their land and lifeways. These groups contested the Treaty of Greenville and argued that no representatives from Chicago were present at the treaty signing, and they grew increasingly frustrated with white settlers who had begun to farm the land and disrupt the environment that Native people had long maintained. These tensions erupted in the Battle of Fort Dearborn. The Battle itself did not take place at the Fort, but about a mile and a half south on the shores of Lake Michigan, on August 15, 1812. It ended in the death of more than fifty American soldiers, women, and children and fifteen Potawatomi fighters. The violence is often positioned as a random act of violence and has been used throughout history to cast Native people as savage, but in reality, it was one of several violent engagements during this time period in which Native people fought on both sides, and it was part of a much larger intertribal resistance movement coordinated by Shawnee leader Tecumseh against American invasion. In June of 1812, Tecumseh and his allies laid out a plan to attack several American forts later that summer: Fort Madison in present-day Iowa, Fort Wayne and Fort Harrison in present-day Indiana, and Fort Dearborn at Chicago. The attacks would be coordinated through wampum belts, small beads made from shells that were strung together to record histories and communicate messages. However, as Tecumseh and his allies made plans, war broke out between the Americans and the British, and Captain Nathan Heald was ordered to evacuate Fort Dearborn. Tecumseh and his allies learned of this planned evacuation, and decided that this was the right time to execute their attack on the fort. The night before the battle, a wampum belt was delivered to Potawatomi leader Mad Sturgeon signaling war should begin. On the morning of the evacuation from the fort, Potawatomi fighters, along with Kickapoo, Sauk, and Ho-Chunk allies, attacked the convoy of American soldiers, civilians, and their Myaamia allies who were leaving the fort. 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. This myth 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. Today, representations like those in "The Defense" continue to cement a story of Indigenous violence within the myth of the city’s founding.

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.

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.

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.

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](https://www.whoselakefront.com/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](https://felt.com/map/Iconography-Map-5qLDiEuoRFanMm87gPzO7C?loc=41.8713,-87.8547,10.79z&share=1). *There is a duplicate point for this site on the Downtown Walking Tour*

Harvard Anthropologist Frederic Putnam was in charge of the official narrative of Indigenous America at the 1893 World's Fair. He used the Anthropology Building and the American Indian Village (different from the one on the Midway) to describe Native peoples' lives as entirely in the past. This was directly contradicted by the dozens of Native people working at his exhibits and other places in the park. The American Indian Village included sixteen Kwak-waka’wakw people from the Northwest Coast sponsored by Canada, nine Penobscot people from Maine, fifteen Haudenosaunee people in longhouses sponsored by New York, and five Diné people from Colorado. The Native people in the American Indian Village had very different experiences from each other. Some were paid decently and made money selling goods. Others, like the Diné people, were unpaid by their host state, Colorado, and were taken advantage of by the agents who brought them to Chicago.

Native peoples from around the United States came to work at the 1933 Century of Progress International Exposition, or World's Fair. Most came as performers, but many artisans came to sell artworks and other items. Craftspeople earned $1.00 a day. This trading post was one of the places where art created by Native peoples was sold. The fair Committee on Arts and Crafts created a special Indian Arts and Crafts Board to regulate the sale of Native art. While the Indian Arts and Crafts Board was formed to provide opportunities for Native peoples to make a living at the fair, fair organizers at the 1933 fair were similarly constricting and paternalistic towards Indigenous people as they were at the 1893 fair. Likewise, the Indian Arts and Crafts Board wouldn’t allow Indigenous people to sell items that included factory-made beads because they wanted to maintain the narrative that Indigenous people were not modern.

The [California Indian Manpower Consortium, Inc. (CIMC](http://www.cimcinc.org/)) 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.

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.

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](https://chicagoliteraryhof.org/inductees/profile/e-donald-two-rivers). 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](https://felt.com/map/Iconography-Map-5qLDiEuoRFanMm87gPzO7C?loc=41.9384,-87.9581,10.99z&share=1).

Founded in the 1970s, the [Native American Support Program (NASP)](https://nasp.uic.edu/) 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.

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 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.

The first non-Native settlers in the Chicago region were primarily explorers aligned with the Jesuits, a religious order within the Catholic Church. The order was founded in 1540 and sought to evangelize and “save the souls” of non-Christians around the world through the establishment of missions. In the Great Lakes, the Jesuits who traveled throughout the region were primarily French. Jesuit expeditions throughout the region were ordered and approved by the Catholic Church, which was closely tied to the French government. The primary purpose of Jesuit expeditions was to establish missions and evangelize Native people, but that did not stop them from noticing the land’s natural resources and its potential for settlement, trade, and exploitation. The most famous Jesuit missionaries associated with Chicago are Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet, who traveled up the Illinois River and through the Chicago portage in 1673. Marquette returned to and camped at Chicago again in 1674 after becoming ill. The vast majority of our written records from the late 17th century come from Jesuit materials, These accounts must be read with a careful eye, but they can also provide rich information about Native cultures and peoples. For example, [this passage](https://archive.org/details/jesuits59jesuuoft/page/n187/mode/2up) describes how Native people Marquette had previously encountered brought him food and supplies during his illness, including corn, pumpkins, meat, blueberries, and beaver skins, all of which were essential to his survival.