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.