Jean Baptiste Point du Sable is regarded as the first permanent non-Native settler of what would later become Chicago, Illinois, and is recognized as the city's founder. The site where he settled near the mouth of the Chicago River around the 1780s is memorialized as a National Historic Landmark, now located in Pioneer Court.
The Battle of Fort Dearborn was an engagement between United States troops and Potawatomi Native Americans that occurred on August 15, 1812, near Fort Dearborn in what is now Chicago, Illinois. The battle, which occurred during the War of 1812, followed the evacuation of the fort as ordered by the commander of the United States Army of the Northwest, William Hull. The battle lasted about 15 minutes and resulted in a complete victory for the Native Americans. After the battle, Fort Dearborn was burned down. Some of the soldiers and settlers who had been taken captive were later ransomed.
Fort Dearborn was a United States fort, first built in 1803 beside the Chicago River, in what is now Chicago, Illinois. It was constructed by U.S. troops under Captain John Whistler and named in honor of Henry Dearborn, then United States Secretary of War. The original fort was destroyed following the Battle of Fort Dearborn during the War of 1812, and a replacement Fort Dearborn was constructed on the same site in 1816 and decommissioned by 1837.
The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of 156 miles (251 km) that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center. Though not especially long, the river is notable because it is one of the reasons for Chicago's geographic importance: the related Chicago Portage is a link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River Basin, and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico.
John Kinzie was a fur trader from Quebec who first operated in Detroit and what became the Northwest Territory of the United States. A partner of William Burnett from Canada, about 1802-1803 Kinzie moved with his wife and child to Chicago, where they were among the first permanent white non-indigenous settlers. Kinzie Street (400N) in Chicago is named for him. Their daughter Ellen Marion Kinzie, born in 1805, was not the first child of European descent born in the settlement. That title goes to Eulalia Pelletier, the granddaughter of Chicago's first permanent non-indigenous settler, Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable.
The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolution. Established in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation through the Northwest Ordinance, it was the nation's first post-colonial organized incorporated territory.
John Harris Kinzie was a prominent figure in Chicago politics during the 19th century. He served as the president of the Board of Trustees of Chicago when it was still a town and thrice unsuccessfully ran for Chicago's mayoralty once it was incorporated as a city.
Billy Caldwell, known also as Sauganash, a variant spelling of Zhagnash meaning British in the Potawatomi language, was a Métis fur trader who was commissioned captain in the Indian Department of Canada during the War of 1812, and fought alongside Tecumseh at the Battle of Frenchtownand likely all the subsequent battles until their defeat at the Battle of the Thames. In 1829 and 1833, he negotiated treaties on behalf of the United Nations of Chippewa, Ottawa and Potawatomi with the United States, as a leader of a Potawatomi and led his band to Trader's Point, Iowa Territory, modern day Council Bluffs. He had worked to gain the boundary long promised by the British between white settlers and Indians, but never achieved it and instead acquiesced to American purchase and Indian removal, leading his followers personally across the Mississippi, as evidenced by his signing of the 2nd Treaty of Prairie du Chien and his inclusion on the Removal Muster Rolls of 1837.
Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie was an American historian, writer and pioneer of the American Midwest.
Sidney Breese, a lawyer, soldier, author and jurist born in New York, became an early Illinois pioneer and represented the state in the United States Senate as well as served as Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court and Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, and has been called "father of the Illinois Central Railroad".
Sauganash Hotel is a former hotel; regarded as the first hotel in Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1831, it was located at Wolf Point in the present day Loop community area at the intersection of the north, south and main branches of the Chicago River. The location at West Lake Street and North Wacker Drive was designated a Chicago Landmark on November 6, 2002. The hotel changed proprietors often in its twenty-year existence and briefly served as Chicago's first theater. It was named after Sauganash, an interpreter in the British Indian Department.
Black Partridge or Black Pheasant was a 19th-century Peoria Lake Potawatomi chieftain. Although a participant in the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812, he was a friend to early American settlers and an advocate for peaceful relations with the United States. He and his brother Waubonsie both attempted to protect settlers during the Battle of Fort Dearborn after they were unsuccessful in preventing the attack.
Samuel Drake Lockwood was an Illinois lawyer and politician who served as the state's Attorney General, Secretary of State, Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court and the state's trustee on the board of the Illinois Central Railroad.
Antoine Ouilmette was a fur trader and early resident of what is now Chicago, Illinois. He was of French Canadian and possibly Native American ancestry. The village of Wilmette, Illinois is named in his honor.
Ensign George Ronan was a commissioned officer of the United States Army. Educated at West Point and commissioned as an officer in the 1st Infantry Regiment in 1811, he was assigned to duty at Fort Dearborn, a frontier post at the mouth of the Chicago River. Just over one year later Ronan was killed in combat in the Battle of Fort Dearborn. He was the first member of the West Point Corps of Cadets to perish in battle.
Jean Baptiste Beaubien, a multi-lingual fur-trader born in Detroit, Michigan, became an early resident of what became Chicago, Illinois, as well as an early civic and militia leader in Cook County, Illinois during the Black Hawk War, before moving to Du Page County, Illinois in his final years.
Alexander Robinson, was a British-Ottawa chief born on Mackinac Island who became a fur trader and ultimately settled near what later became Chicago. Multilingual in Odawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwa, English and French, Robinson also helped evacuate survivors of the Fort Dearborn Massacre in 1812. In 1816, Robinson was a translator for native peoples during the Treaty of St. Louis. He became a Potawatomi chief in 1829 and in that year and in 1833, he and fellow Metis Billy Caldwell negotiated treaties on behalf of the United Nations of Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi with the United States. Although Robinson helped lead Native Americans across the Mississippi River in 1835, unlike Caldwell, Robinson returned to the Chicago area by 1840 and lived as a respected citizen in western Cook County until his death decades later.
James Thompson was an American surveyor who created the first plat of Chicago. Born in South Carolina, Thompson moved to Kaskaskia in southern Illinois as a young man and lived in the area for the rest of his life, working primarily as a surveyor. He was hired to plat settlements at the ends of the proposed Illinois and Michigan Canal in northern Illinois; he completed the plat of Chicago, the settlement at the eastern end, on August 4, 1830. After completing his survey of Chicago he returned to the Kaskaskia area and declined an offer of land in Chicago in favor of a cash payment. In addition to his surveying work, he served in various positions such as probate judge, county commissioner, and officer in the Illinois militia during the Black Hawk War.
Thomas Jefferson Vance Owen was an American settler who was the first president of the Board of Trustees of the Town of Chicago.
The 1833 Treaty of Chicago was an agreement between the United States government and the Chippewa, Odawa, and Potawatomi tribes. It required them to cede to the United States government their 5,000,000 acres (2,000,000 ha) of land in Illinois, the Wisconsin Territory, and the Michigan Territory and to move west of the Mississippi River. In return, the tribes were given promises of various cash payments and tracts of land west of the Mississippi River. The treaty was one of the removal treaties to come after the passage of the Indian Removal Act. It was the second treaty referred to as the "Treaty of Chicago," after the 1821 Treaty of Chicago.
