Should Jean Baptist Point DuSable be considered the “Father of Chicago?”?

“Jean Baptist Point DuSable was a black American pioneer, and he was the first non-Indian resident known to build a house and start a trading post on the land that became Chicago. DuSable’s father was a merchant, and his mother was Haitian. DuSable left Haiti in the 1770’s to go to North America, specifically the Great Lakes. In 1773, he had a farm near Peoria. He was so loyal to the Americans that once he moved there, he was arrested by the British in 1779, and spent the next few years as a prisoner in Fort Mackinac.

Very little is known about the Chicagoland area from 1770 to 1779. Somehow, during that time, DuSable managed to keep a British trading post call the Pinery on St. Clair River, now called Michigan. That was the first permanant building in that area. He became rich.

After that, DuSable went to what is now Chicago, at the mouth of the Chicago River, on the shores of Lake Michigan, called Fort Dearborn. He was the first non-Native American resident of that area. He married a Potowatomie Native American named Kittahawa, also called Catherine. DuSable had the first marriage, and also held the very first election. He traded fur and grain, and called the place he was living in the essential trading place.”

Records do not agree on the precise spelling of the name of the first settler and it may be found variously as Pointe de Sable, Au Sable, Point Sable, Sabre and Pointe de Saible. DuSable, who appears to have been a man of good taste and refinement, was a husbandman, a carpenter, a cooper, a miller, and probably a distiller.

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable homesite is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, as a National Historic Landmark on May 11, 1976. It is located at what is now 401 North Michigan Avenue in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois. Currently the 35-story Equitable Building is located there.