Native Tribes

Chicago – derived from native American term “chicagoua” – meaning - ‘the place of the smelly onion’

Native Tribes• No tribe lived here year round• Miami – primary tribe in area during 17th Century• Potawatomi – later replaced Miami• Illinois and Ojibwa groups knew of the area• Mud Lake – Swampy area connecting Des Plaines

River and Chicago River until 1900 when it was filled in by Chicagoans

Early French Explorers• Louis Jolliet (French trader and explorer) and

Jacques Marquette (Jesuit Missionary)• 1673 – Searched for passage to Pacific Ocean• Traveled most of Mississippi River and on return,

stopped on SW edge of Lake Michigan• First Europeans to Chicago

“The first white man to settle in Chicago was black”

• Jean Baptiste Point de Sable

• Part African and French• Born in Haiti• 1770s – 1780s – First

established Chicago resident – fur trader

• Lived on north bank of Chicago river with family – Pottawatomie wife and two children

Chicago 1833 – Incorporated as village

Early Chicago Key Dates• 1803 – Fort Dearborn established• 1803 – John Kinzie “Father of Chicago” arrives• 1836 – Native Americans defeated by Americans in

Blackhawk War• 1833 – Chicago incorporated as a village (350

residents)• 1837 – Chicago incorporates as a city (4,000

residents)

Late 1700s

Approximately 1833 – population 350

City incorporated – March 4, 1837

No maps exist, however population reached 5,000 by 1837

1868 – One year prior to the building of Saint Ignatius College