By the end of this exercise, I can… 

• describe the balance of power in early colonial interactions 
• explain how Indigenous people, especially Indigenous women, applied values of generosity and hospitality as they brought settlers into their existing networks for trade, kinship, and diplomacy.

This exercise directly relates to:

• Native American societies before European contact (pre-1673)
• European exploration in the New World (1670s-1830s)
• How different European colonies developed and expanded (1670s-1830s)
• Interactions between American Indians and Europeans (1670s-1830s)

This exercise could also be paired with teaching about: 

• The settlement of the (Mid)West (1790s-1830s)

Inquiry

• SS.9-12.IS.5. Gather and evaluate information from multiple primary and secondary sources that reflect the perspectives and experiences of multiple groups, including marginalized groups.

Geography

• SS.9-12.G.10. Analyze how historical events and the diffusion of ideas, technologies and cultural practices have influenced migration patterns and the distribution of the human population.

History

• SS.9-12.H.14. Analyze the geographic and cultural forces that have resulted in conflict and cooperation. Identify the cause and effects of imperialism and colonization.

Confederacies

Before settlers arrived in North America, Native people already had ways of creating alliances for trade, diplomacy, and mutual protection. Among the Indigenous confederacies that shaped the Chicago region were the Neshnabék and the Illinois Confederation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, conflicts known as the Beaver and Fox Wars, as well as the American Revolution, pushed both of these groups further southwest. As they were forced to leave their homes, many deepened their kinship ties and lived in international villages in the Chicago area made up of people from many Native nations. Others who suffered due to epidemics would also sometimes merge with larger, allied tribes. These other tribes were often already connected to them through family. This process created larger confederations. 

The Neshnabék consists of the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Odawa. Their confederacy is also called the Council of Three Fires. Though they are three distinct groups, they have close cultural, political, and economic connections. They share similar languages, histories, cultures, and traditional lifeways. They are closely connected by family ties, and there have been many political and military alliances between them. 

The Illinois Confederation includes a large group of related tribes: Peoria, Kaskaskia, Wea, Piankashaw, Cahokia, Tamaroa, Michigamea, Tapouara, Maroa, Moingwena, Chepoussa, Chinkoa, Coiracoentanon, Espeminkia, Pepikokia, Michibousa, Raparoua, Albivi, Eel River, and Amouokoa. However, the groups within the confederation shifted over time. For example, prior to 1848, the Wea and Piankashaw were more connected to Myaamia people, and Pepikokia and Eel River people also have ties to the Myaamia, who are relatives of the confederation. As colonial conflicts and settler migrations pushed these tribes out of their homelands, they banded together for political alliances and mutual support. 

Waterways and sustainable living

The lands and waters in the vicinity of modern day Chicago have been an important area to these confederacies and other Indigenous nations since time immemorial. The portages at Chicago have been part of major trade routes that linked the upper Great Lakes with the Illinois and Mississippi River valleys. These trade routes went at least as far as the Gulf Coast. You can see some of the trade routes on this map!

Many Indigenous groups have long had close relationships with these waterways. The words in Indigenous languages reflect the deep knowledge they developed through these relationships. For example, Myaamia people and those within the Illinois Confederation know the Des Plaines River as šikaakwa siipiiwi, or “Leek River.” This is because of the wild allium plants that used to grow abundantly along its banks. 

Indigenous knowledges about the waterways also include which waterways to use in which seasons. The main Chicago portage connected the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River. At times, there was so much flooding that these rivers merged in a marshy area once known as Mud Lake. Other times, there was so little rain or snowmelt that the portage was several miles long. Similar conditions existed for portages along today’s Calumet River and Hickory & Thorn Creeks. You can imagine how confusing this might have been for settlers who were attempting to map the region. But Native people knew this place and understood its seasonal shifts. Native communities had gathered extensive knowledge of this place over centuries of trading, farming, and making their homes along Chicago’s waterways. 

Before colonization, Indigenous people lived in Chicago both full time and as part of seasonal rounds. These rounds were annual patterns of coming to a particular place at a particular time. Indigenous people developed these cycles based on the growth cycles of plants and migrations of animals. Many Indigenous people lived this way before colonization because it was a sustainable way of life. These seasons followed a predictable pattern for planting, hunting, fishing, and harvesting. Moving this way allowed for communities to regularly renew their connections to each other. In Chicago, some examples of seasonal activities include (among others): 

• Spring: Collecting sap from maple trees to make sugar and syrup, harvesting spring plants like ramps (similar to a green onion) which grow along streams, planting vegetable gardens
• Summer: Fishing for sturgeon, whitefish, trout, walleye, and other fish in the lakes and rivers, tending to vegetables like corn, beans, and squash
• Fall: Hunting migrating birds like ducks and geese, harvesting wild rice in marshes and small lakes, harvesting remaining vegetables grown over the summer 
• Winter: Hunting muskrats, otters, and beavers in marshes, deer in forested areas, and bison on the prairie

Indigenous territories and local authority

Europeans who arrived in the Chicago region had no knowledge of how to survive locally. They didn’t know anything about local plants, waterways, food sources, medicines, good places to live, or the existing politics between Native nations. They had to rely on Native people for the information they needed to survive, trade, and build diplomatic relationships. 

Europeans had to work with Native people in the places already important to them. The first non-Native settlers in the Chicago region were mostly French explorers who worked with the Jesuits, a religious order within the Catholic Church. Jesuits mostly focused on converting Native people to Christianity. Even so, they also watched for local natural resources to exploit and for good places for European settlement and trade. They believed that if European empires expanded, their conversion efforts would too. When these priests arrived in the area in the late 1600s, they had to work within existing Native places and cultural expectations. Native people had long histories of welcoming and interacting with foreigners. They knew these outsiders brought trade opportunities and new ideas. Missionaries were likewise interested in living near existing villages and making alliances with Native people in order to spread their messages. One example of this is the Mission of the Guardian Angel. Jesuits established this mission in 1696 on the Chicago River near two Wea summer villages. At this time the Wea, or Waayaahtanwa, were a subgroup of the Myaamia. These two villages also included Peoria and Kaskaskia peoples.

The Fur Trade

Before colonization, Native nations in this region had strong systems for government, agriculture, and sustainable harvesting. Since Europeans wanted fur pelts to export back to Europe, they had to learn to work within these nations’ systems. 

To be successful in the fur trade, non-Native traders had to establish and maintain relationships with the Native peoples who controlled these lands. This included joining Indigenous kinship networks, often by marrying Native women. Ojibwe scholar Michael Witgen describes this process clearly: Settlers who were new to the region either became ndenwémagen (relatives in the Potawatomi language, pronounced nih·dihn·way·mah·gehn) or myeg yegwan (foreigners, pronounced mee·yehg·yeh·gwun). In order to be successful in the fur trade, they had to become relatives. 

Native women were also important decision makers in the fur trade. When Native women chose to marry European fur traders, they continued Indigenous practices of and values for incorporating newcomers into their communities. They introduced their fur trading husbands to the people they would need to know to do business. They managed the businesses locally while their husbands traded across the Great Lakes region for long periods of time. They translated across various Native languages. They also educated their husbands (and business partners!) on protocols for greetings, gift exchange, and communication.

One Native woman who took part in the fur trade is Marie-Madeleine Saint-Jean. She was an Onondaga woman, and she married French fur trader François Francouer. In 1692, she signed a contract for the sale and transport of beaver pelts between Chicago and Michilimackinac (present-day Mackinac Island). She signed on behalf of her husband (you’ll see this source in the exercise below). This tells us that she had the authority to manage the business in his absence. Other examples include Kitihawa, who married fur trader Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, and Archange Ouilmette, who married fur trader Antoine Ouilmette in the early 1800s. Both Kitihawa and Archange  helped manage their families’ fur trade businesses. As a trader of likely Haitian descent, Du Sable’s story provides us with an important example of a freed Black man creating kinship ties with Native communities. He and Ouilmette are often remembered today as heroic founders of Chicago on their own accord. Unfortunately, contemporary versions of this history too often hide the work of women like Kitihawa and Archange who taught them how to survive here.

Sources

Nelson, John William. Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago’s Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2023). 

Sleeper-Smith, Susan. Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001). 

Tanner, Helen Hornbeck. Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History. 2nd edition. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987). 

Witgen, Michael. An Infinity of Nations: How the Native New World Shaped Early North America. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). 

Note to teachers: We invite you to use the components of the Indigenous Chicago curriculum that best align with the needs of your classroom. The following suggested steps can be modified as needed, and we invite you to use the teacher’s history brief to inspire new exercises that best meet the needs of your students. Please note that we suggest shortening, rather than modifying, the language of historical sources to best reflect the original source’s context, intention, and voice. 

1. Review the information in the Background section above. Note how many Native nations in the region banded together as confederacies. How might Indigenous confederacies be one form of convergence in the region?

2. To prepare for the primary sources you’re about to look at, create a chart like the one below (adapted from Nokes, 2022, p. 130):

3. Then, look at this 1830 map of Chicago (Source 1). Notice that this map shows Chicago before engineers rerouted the river. 

• • What geographic features do you notice that might make Chicago a good place for people to come together? 
  • How might the forests and waterways make this an appealing place to meet and live?
  • Based on the information in the Background section above, what types of seasonal activities might this landscape have supported?

4. Read this letter from John Kinzie to Lewis Cass, July 15 1815 (Source 2, also included in a later section). 

Kinzie was a fur trader who spent much of his life in Chicago. In this letter, he describes the presence of Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa people who traveled to Chicago for seasonal rounds (see more in the Background section). Note how Kinzie talks about why Chicago and the Chicago portage are important for trade. He also describes why good relationships with Indigenous nations are important for safe passage. He says this will be necessary for the future of the United States. 

• • Based on what Kinzie says, how would you describe the balance of power between settlers and Indigenous people in the early 1800s?
  • How much can you trust Kinzie’s description of Indigenous violence? What reasons might Indigenous nations have had for using military responses to colonial invasion?  For more on strategies for Indigenous resistance, check out Module 3!

5. Each Indigenous nation has its own specific histories, cultures, and approaches to governance. Even so, many Indigenous communities have core values around generosity and hospitality. Look at this Jesuit missionary journal from 1673 (Source 3, also reprinted at the end of this document). Connect it with what you’ve seen in the background section and the Kinzie letter for evidence of Indigenous value systems. 

• • How did Indigenous people apply generosity and hospitality for settlers who were hungry, lost, or sick?
  • How did settlers have to follow these values in their trade interactions with Indigenous people? Notice, for example, the importance of gifting in the Kinzie letter. 
  • How do these stories question Kinzie’s description of Indigenous people as extremely violent?

6. Now, look at this voyageurs contract in Michilimackinac and Québec in 1692 (Source 4, also included and translated further down this page). This document reflects different people involved in the fur trade in the late 1600s. 

• • Who signed the contracts? What does this tell us about the role of women in the fur trade? Review the information in the Background section above. Remember that traditionally, women, men, and people identifying as another gender have held different but equally significant roles in Indigenous decision-making for trade and diplomacy. It would not have been unusual for an Indigenous woman to be in a leadership position at this time!

7. Summing it up! As you wrap this lesson, reflect back on the two main takeaways: 1) the balance of power in early colonial interactions and 2) how Indigenous people, especially Indigenous women, brought early European settlers into their existing networks for trade, kinship, and diplomacy.

• • Now, how would you describe the balance of power between settlers and Indigenous nations in the early 1800s?
  • What values would you say settlers and Indigenous people each had that made them interact in this way?

Note that this map may be more easily viewed online.

Alfred T. Andreas was an American historian. He was most famous for his atlases of counties and states across the Midwest. His most famous work about Illinois is a three volume History of Chicago published in 1884, which many people who study the history of Chicago still use today. 

Source citation: Andreas, Alfred T. “Map of Chicago, 1830” in History of Chicago: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time. Vol. 1 (Chicago: A.T. Andreas, 1884), 112-113. 

John Kinzie was a fur trader who spent much of his life in Chicago. He was born in Quebec City in 1763. By the time he was 14 years old, he had moved to Detroit and started working as a fur trader. Kinzie worked as a fur trader for most of his life and lived near Native people. He probably spoke several Native languages, including Neshnabémwen, the language of the Neshnabék (Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Odawa) people. 

Kinzie moved to Chicago in 1802 and lived in Jean Baptiste Point du Sable’s former house. While he lived in Chicago, Kinzie worked for the U.S. government in several ways. He supplied the soldiers stationed at Fort Dearborn with items like alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and sugar. Kinzie lived in Chicago until he died in 1828. 

When Kinzie wrote this letter, he was working as the Indian subagent at Fort Dearborn. As a subagent, he represented the U.S. government in their interactions with Native people. He also communicated information about local Native communities to U.S. government officials. He addressed this letter to Louis Cass. At this time, Cass was the Territorial Governor of Michigan Territory and the acting Indian Superintendent of Michigan Territory (a superintendent was responsible for Indian Affairs in a wider territory). In the letter, Kinzie describes the presence of Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa people who traveled to Chicago as part of their seasonal rounds. 

Letter from John Kinzie to Louis Cass, Detroit, July 15, 1815 

Taking into consideration the importance of that section of Country lying on the Southern extremity of Lake Michigan to our Government and having been upwards of twenty years residence on that portion of United States acquired a knowledge of its importance. I thus take the liberty of laying my observations before you.

The executive of the U. S. appear anxious to establish a peaceable and friendly intercourse with the Indians tribes, the most determinedly hostile are the Chippeway, Potawatomies, Ottawa of Larbre Croche, and the Winnebago Tribes, who inhabit the country between the Southern extremity of Lake Michigan and Michillimackinac, and whose chief residence is upon Grand and Muskegon rivers, but, who from the want of a proper supply of game, are compelled to emigrate at certain seasons to the waters of Chicago, Illinois and Fox Rivers. The hostility of these, tribes is owing to their intercourse with the traders of the W Company, whose intercourse & of course whose policy is to render them inimical to all american traders from what I have already said the importance of establishing a military post at or near the place of their general rendezvous will at once present itself the spot which is most important and which will possess the greatest advantages is that on which Fort Dearborn formerly stood as those tribes generally rendezvous there in the Spring. Consequently a garrison would be necessary to reduce trade and intercourse with them to a system and to prevent frauds and misrepresentations from the agents of another government whose interference will ever keep them hostile to the United States. 

As the navigation of the waters will in a few years become an object of great importance to the U. States as at present boats of several tons burthen can pass from Lake Michigan into the Mississippi River there being only four & half feet difference in the elevation of the two waters. Therefore it would be politick to adopt measures in due time that will secure the friendship of the hostile and fix that of the wavering. A judicious system of policy will in a few years affect more toward conciliating the tribes that are hostile than a long expensive exterminating war. An intercourse with the savages is absolutely necessary. Garrisons to protect trade and create respect for agents are equally so. Agents should act with the most impartial justice and should administer to their little wants the supply they have been long in the habit of receiving from the British Government. While the Citizens of the U. States are kept at, such a distance from those tribes and their trade so confined from the want of the arm of protection being extended over it and the intercourse of the foreign merchants (who bear away nine tenths of that important trade) allowed the american can do no other than submit in Silence or coincide with the consumate the intriguing British trade or perhaps his scalp may be paid for and he fall the victim of the hatchet if he has the temerity to support his country. 

The only means to do away the mistaken animosity of the tribes is by the proper application of small presents to the chiefs, a mild and conciliatory conduct to the nation at large and by keeping such an armed force in their neighbourhood as will awe medling intruders into Silence. Chicago is all important to the Illinois Country as it is the key of communication and has command of the trade a vast Territory and whose navigation serves to forward the returns of the merchant to Michillimackinac at a much lower rate than they can at present be forwarded by the Mississippi owing to the difficulty of procuring boats. The Coal and Lead mines will when protected by the arm of authority become very important to this frontier as all transportation from them may be made by water. The calling the above named tribes to Green Bay to receive annuities or other gratuities that may be granted them by Government, or to trade at that Factory will be attended with very little benefit unto the tribes mentioned as the distance is great; the face of the Country one continued morass and in the winter season impassable by the traveller owing to the depth of the Snow. Therefore those tribes will suffer if they have to depend on the Agency or factory at G. Bay. 

The above statement you may rely is correct. Having resided many years in the Country as an individual, I have combatted in trade against the whole Michillimackinac of W Company and have many years employed a Vessel for my return furs to Detroit. I mention this to show you the importance of the trade of the Chicago Country if correctly managed. 

Source citation: Kinzie, John to Louis Cass, July 15, 1815. Michigan Superintendency of Indian Affairs, 1814-1851, Letters Received and Sent by the Superintendent. National Archives and Records Administration, Microfilm Publication M1, Roll 2. P. 90-93. 

Jacques Marquette was a Jesuit missionary who traveled through the Mississippi River Valley in the late 1600s. He was born in France in 1637 and arrived in Quebec in 1666. Marquette spent time with many Indigenous communities north of the St. Lawrence River and studied several Indigenous languages. In 1673, Marquette left St. Ignace (a French settlement in what is now known as Michigan) with Louis Jolliet, a French explorer. Together, they traveled through present-day Wisconsin to the Mississippi River. Once on the river, they traveled hundreds of miles south to what is now called the Arkansas River. However, on their return journey, Native people told them about a shortcut through the Chicago portage. Even though Kaskaskia people guided Marquette and his group through the portage, he and Jolliet are frequently credited for “discovering” Chicago. 

October 28 – November 1, 1674 at what was then the portage between Sturgeon Bay (currently Bay of Green Bay) and Lake Michigan in what is currently Door County, Wisconsin

We reached the portage. A canoe that had gone ahead prevented us from killing any game. We began our portage and slept on the other shore, where the stormy weather gave us much trouble. Pierre did not arrive until an hour after dark, having lost his way on a path where he had never been. After the rain and thunder, snow fell.

Being compelled to change our camping-ground, we continue to carry our packs. The portage covers nearly a league, and is very difficult in many places. The Illinois assemble in the evening in our cabin, and ask us not to leave them, as we may need them, and they know the lake better than we do. We promise them this.

The Illinois women complete our portage in the morning. We are delayed by the wind. There are no animals.

We start, with tolerably fair weather, and sleep at a small river. The road by land from sturgeon bay is very difficult. Last autumn, we were traveling not far from it when we entered the forest.

After I said holy mass, we came for the night to a river, whence one goes to the Poutewatamis [Potawatomis] by a good road. Chachagwessiou, an Illinois greatly esteemed among his nation, partly because he engages in the fur trade, arrived at night with a deer on his back, of which he gave us a share. 

The original French text is available here on p. 166!

Source citation: Jacques Marquette, “Unfinished Journal of Jacques Marquette, addressed to the Reverend Father Claude Deblon, superior of the Missions.” October 28 – November 1, 1674. The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. Vol LIX. Ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites. (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers Company, 1900), 166. 

You can view the contract here.

Though we know little about the individuals who signed this contract, “voyageurs” is a term used for French travelers who transported furs in canoes in the 18th and 19th centuries. Voyageurs were licensed by the French government. The French government regulated their transport of furs in contracts like this one. 

Source citation: Marie Magdelaine de Saint Jean, Simon Guillory, and Claude Maugue. “Fur trade contract between François Francoeur and four voyageurs for transport of goods and purchase of beaver pelts in Michilimackinac and Chicago Ville-Marie [Québec], before the clerk Claude Maugue.” September 15, 1692. Rudy Lamont Ruggles Collection, Newberry Library.

Before Claude Maugue, Royal [notary] and of the island of Montreal residing there and undersigned witnesses, were present in their person Magdelaine de Saint Jean wife of François Francour dit Lavallée currently in Illinois, authorized by him to manage the affairs of their community, on the one hand, and … Simon Guillory, Jean Baptiste Jarry, Louis Roy, acting both for them and for François Roy, all residing on this island on the other hand, the parties have made between themselves the following agreements, that they are committed to the service of François and Saint Jean, for one year to begin next spring, thus it follows, that they promise and oblige themselves to lead and drive to the place of [Michilimackinac] if her husband is there, and if he is not, to Chicagou, even if he were in [Michilimackinac] if he wishes to have the goods driven in his two canoes to Chicagou, they will be obliged to do so. And having arrived there and delivered the goods to the place, the aforementioned travelers will be free to go winter wherever they please in one of the two canoes for the four of them, and handle for their own private profit three hundred livres of goods that each of the four of them will be able to carry there. … This present commitment is made for and in return for the sum of five hundred livres in beaver each, the price of the King’s office in this country, payable in [Michilimackinac] out of the twenty-five packs that they will carry to this place, and if they were prevented from going to winter in the hunting grounds which are in Illinois they will be fed by Francour who will winter them where one ordinarily winters, and if the {aforementioned} are more than one year on the journey which will begin this next spring as is stated, will be paid in proportion to the five hundred livres each, as is stated. … Done at Villemarie office of the [notary], before noon the fifteenth of [1692]. Presence of Jean Le Gras and Adrien Betourne bourgeois and witnesses undersigned with Sieur Guillory and notaries Roy and Jarry.

Marie Magdelaine de Saint Jean

Simon Guillory

Claude Maugue

Adapted from translation by Rachel Sarcevic-Tesanovic.