Indigenous Chicago

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 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.

Sources:

The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. Vol LIX. Ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites. (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers Company, 1900)

Re-Thinking Chicago's Founding

Mainstream narratives of Chicago’s founding have primarily featured European and American settlers. But stories of René-Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle, Jacques Marquette, and Louis Jolliet as visionary adventurers and John Kinzie and Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable as founding settlers have concealed a much more complicated reality. In fact, Indigenous people lived on the land now called Chicago a long time before Europeans set foot here, and many remain here today. Indigenous people used this area for seasonal and more permanent village sites, to gather food sources like wild rice and wild onions (or ramps), and to travel to other parts of the larger Great Lakes and Mississippi River networks. The first European settlers entered into an already existing network of trade and familial relationships created before their arrival. How does this change the way we understand the founding of Chicago as a city? This City Story re-centers Indigenous people to encourage a re-thinking of the familiar “founding” myths. It casts aside unnecessary superlatives like “first” settlers and “last” Native peoples in order to understand the more complicated origins of Chicago. Sources Alfred Theodore Andreas, *History of Chicago: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time* (Chicago: A. T. Andreas, 1884) Ann Durkin Keating, *Rising up from Indian Country: The Battle of Fort Dearborn and the Birth of Chicago* (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2012) Juliette Kinzie, *Wau-Bun, the “Early Day” in the North-West* (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1856) Jean M. O'Brien, *Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England* (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010) Terry Straus, ed., *Indians of the Chicago Area* (Chicago, Ill: NAES College, 1990).