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Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable
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Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable (1730s - August 28, 1818) was the first known settler in the area which is now Chicago, Illinois. He was long ignored by historians, partly because he was a Haitian and not fully white, and partly because the early histories were written by the friends and descendants of John Kinzie, to whom du Sable sold his house in 1800.
Little is known for sure about du Sable's early life. He may have been born as early as the 1730s to a slave named Suzanna and a French pirate mate named Pointe du Sable who served about the Black Sea Gull.[1] Suzanna may have been killed in a Spanish raid on Haiti and du Sable escaped by swimming out to his father's ship. After his father sent him to study at a Catholic school in France, du Sable and a friend, Jacques Clamorgan, traveled to Louisiana and then to Michigan, where du Sable married the Potawatomi Kittihawa.
Du Sable built his first house in Chicago in the
1770s on the land now known as Pioneer Court, thirty years before
Fort Dearborn was established on the banks of the
Chicago River.
[1] By the time he sold to Kinzie's frontman,
Jean La Lime, for 6,000 livres,
[2] his property included a house, two barns, a horsemill, a bakehouse, a poultry house, a dairy and a
smokehouse.
[3] The interior was richly appointed as well. His home also served as the first trading post in Chicago.
The Potawatomi called him "Black Chief," and he became a high-ranking member of the tribe. They had a son and daughter, Jean and Susanne. Du Sable's grand-daughter, Eulalia, was the first non-Indian born in Chicago. During the Revolutionary War, he was imprisoned briefly by the British at Detroit, Michigan, on suspicion of being a US spy.[4] He also helped George Rogers Clark in a raid on Vincennes during the war.[1]
In 1800 du Sable left Chicago for Peoria, and in 1805 headed to Missouri. He died in St. Charles, and was buried in an unmarked grave in St. Borromeo Cemetery until a granite marker was erected in 1968.[1] His home in Missouri eventually became the official residence of the first governor of Missouri.
In 1913, Milo Quaife discovered the bill of sale from du Sable to Jean La Lime, an assistant to Kinzie. This document outlined all of the property du Sable owned as well as many of his personal artifacts.[3]
The
DuSable Museum of African American History, on Chicago's South Side, is named in his honor.
References
- ^ a b c d Patricia Leeds. "Du Sable's Pioneer Role is Recalled." Chicago Tribune, July 15, 1976. p.N2.
- ^ "Historic Paper Will Be Filed in City Today" Chicago Daily Tribune August 26, 1954. p.10.
- ^ a b Keenan Heise. "Jean Baptiste Point du Sable" (sic). Chicago Originals, Bonus Books, 1990. pp3-4.
- ^ Charles Balesi. The Time of the French in the Heart of North America, 1673-1818. Alliance Française.
External link
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