February 12, 2022 - Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable

Today, February 12, 2022, Lyles Station Historic School and Museum travels up to the Great Lakes to visit the history of Chicago and learn about the African-American man who founded it.
The Father of Chicago, Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable, was described as handsome and well-educated-a gentleman and a scholar-and the Native American Indians popularized the saying that "The first white man to settle in Chicago was a black man."
Du Sable was known as an explorer and entrepreneur, and a highly respected businessman who spoke French, Spanish, English, and several Native American languages. He traded heavily with neighboring Indian tribes and established the main supply station for westward-bound white men who were moving from the English colonies.
A native of Haiti, Du Sable’s mother Suzanna was an emancipated slave from within the Congo. His father was a French merchant mariner on the Black Sea Gull, and Du Sable worked as a seaman on his father’s ships. His father also made sure that he was educated in France.
By the 1760s, Du Sable had sailed to the Louisiana Territory, then moved on from New Orleans to St. Louis where he established a fur trading post.
He then journeyed north on the Mississippi River to Peoria, Illinois, then settled on the northern bank of the Chicago River near Lake Michigan around 1779 near what is now the Tribune Tower building, where he established a prosperous trading post and farm.
He married a native Potawatomi Indian, Catherine, whose family connections to fur settlements throughout the Mississippi River valley and Great Lakes, served as a major factor in the Du Sables’ financial success. Native Americans, British, and French explorers patronized his trading post, and Du Sable aptly served them all, speaking Spanish, French, English, and several Native American dialects. His trading post supplied his customers with flour, pork, bread, and other necessary commodities. He also mediated in local issues.
Du Sable’s home did not resemble the simple trading posts we see in the old western movies and tv shows, which were simple log cabins with sparse furnishings. His home was far from modest, built of imported French walnut wood and containing a feather bed, mirrors, pictures, and at least twenty-three Old World art treasures. The cabin featured a large stone fireplace, stables and huts for employees, a fenced-in garden, an orchard, a poultry house, a stable, a barn, and separate buildings for baking and smoking meat. He kept at least thirty cattle, thirty-eight hogs, and forty-four hens.
In 1800, Du Sable sold his property for 6,000 pounds and headed west for new adventures.