By the end of this exercise, I can… 

• describe how linguistic information can tell us about people’s connections to place

This exercise directly relates to:

• How different European colonies developed and expanded (1800-1830s)
• Interactions between American Indians and Europeans (1800-1830s)
• The Battle of Tippecanoe (1811)
• The War of 1812

This exercise could also be paired with teaching about: 

• Northwest Ordinance. Connect to events leading up to the Battle of Fort Dearborn. 
• The election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800. Connect to events leading up to the Battle of Fort Dearborn. 
• The Louisiana Purchase. Connect to events leading up to the Battle of Fort Dearborn. 
• Election of William Henry Harrison and “log cabin campaign.” Connect to the aftermath of the Battle of Fort Dearborn. 
• Manifest Destiny. Connect to the Black Hawk War. 
• The settlement of the West. Connect to the Black Hawk War
• Battle of Little Bighorn. Connect to other examples of armed resistance like the Battle of Fort Dearborn and the Black Hawk War. 
• Nez Perce War. Connect to other examples of armed resistance like the Battle of Fort Dearborn and the Black Hawk War. 
• Wounded Knee Massacre. Connect to the Black Hawk War, particularly the Bad Axe Massacre. 

Inquiry

• SS.9-12.IS.4 Determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in answering compelling and supporting questions, taking into consideration multiple points of view represented in the sources, the types of sources available, and the potential uses of the sources.

An Established Native Place

Indigenous knowledge, early maps and journals of non-Native explorers, and anthropological evidence tell us that what we now call Chicago has been home to Native people since time immemorial. At least a dozen Native nations consider Chicago to be part of their ancestral homelands: the Neshnabék, a confederation of Potawatomi, Ojibwe and Odawa people; the Illinois Confederation, a confederation of Peoria and Kaskaskia people, among other smaller nations; the Myaamia and Wea people; the Ho-Chunk people; the Sauk and Meskwaki people; the Kickapoo and Mascouten people; and the Menominee people. 

Before the city as we know it existed, these Indigenous nations who lived and had long standing relationships with this place knew it as Zhegagoynak, Gaa-zhigaagwanzhikaag, Zhgaagoong, Šikaakonki, Shekâkôheki, Sekākoh, and Gųųšge honąk, among other names. Mispronunciations and misspellings of these words as  “Checagou” or “Chicagua” appear often in early colonial maps. Indigenous languages reflect unique cultures and worldviews, and these Indigenous words for Chicago reveal important details about Native peoples’ relationships with and understanding of this place. It is a sign of respect to prioritize these words over French misunderstandings like Checagou or Chicagua. 

You might hear people say that Chicago is named after “the Algonquin name” for wild onion or a similar allium. This isn’t quite right: while several of the words above do translate to “place of wild onions” or something similar, there is no single Algonquin word for such a plant, because “Algonquin” refers to a large group of languages, including those of the Illinois Confederation, Neshnabék, Myaamiaki, Sauk, Meskwaki, and Menominee, among others. In other words, there are many Algonquin words for the place we now call Chicago. 

As Indigenous names for Chicago show us, many wild onions, or ramps, grew in Chicago for generations. These plants served as an important form of sustenance for the Native peoples of this region. Ramps are hard to grow and easy to overharvest. That ramps grew here in abundance for generations tells us that Native people were carefully stewarding the land and the plant population. 

The Chicago landscape made it a welcoming area for people, plants, animals, birds, and insects to live. The marshes and oak savannas had lots of animals, birds, fish, and plants to eat. It’s also a unique ecosystem, since it provides a transition between the Great Plains and the forests around the Great Lakes. The landscape also made transportation convenient. The waterways and portages connect Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes to the Illinois River, the Mississippi River, and eventually the Gulf of Mexico. Chicago’s location and its abundant food sources have made it a desirable place to live, trade, and gather. Indigenous people had long treated Chicago as a crossroads where many Native people from different cultural and political backgrounds came together (for more on this, see the Convergence module!).

Chicago was also important as an intersection of several waterways, and its rich landscape drew many Indigenous peoples to the area. Each Native nation had (and has!) its own language, government system, set of spiritual or religious teachings, and systems for food production, land management, transportation, architecture, and many more. Native people throughout the Great Lakes also had established kinship networks and protocols for relationality, which included relationships for family, trade, diplomacy, ceremony, and mutual protection with other nations. It is a myth that Indigenous people lacked boundaries before colonialism. Indigenous people had long-standing ways of recognizing territorial boundaries between Native nations for governing, hunting, farming, and other needs. The agreements that outlined how Native nations shared or divided space were not one-time papers like the treaties that would come later. Instead, these agreements were rules and protocols for relationships that needed to be renewed on a regular basis. This helped to make sure that the agreements still met everyone’s needs and that everyone knew what they were agreeing to. For Indigenous people before colonization, making agreements with other tribes was a way of ensuring sustainable, healthy, peaceful coexistence through relationships and respect.

These negotiations for shared place made it possible for some Indigenous people to live in Chicago full time, while others passed through Chicago 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

Sources

Augustine, Stephen J. “Oral Traditions.” Indigenous Foundations, indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca. 

Bauer, William. “Oral History,” in Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies, ed. Chris Andersen and Jean M. O’Brien (New York: Routledge, 2017). 

Mahuika, Nepia. ReThinking Oral History and Tradition: An Indigenous Perspective. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). 

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

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

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. Linguistic information (information from languages) can help us understand Indigenous relationships with specific places. Even though the United States government had many policies and practices to get rid of Indigenous languages, Native people have worked hard to keep and revitalize their languages. Indigenous languages persist today. The words in these languages can tell us a lot about the histories of Indigenous relationships to place. Review the information in the Background section above. How many different Native languages are represented in the Chicago area? 

2. Let’s build our comfort with the names people use for themselves and for the Chicago area. Practice saying the names of the Native nations and their words for Chicago out loud. Using the words people use for themselves is a sign of respect; the words people prefer might change over time!

• • What trends do you notice across the names? 
  • What differences do you notice?
  • What do you infer about the relationships between these nations? (Hint! Think about the relationships between languages like French, Spanish, and Portuguese.)

3. People do not name places that are insignificant to them. So much information about places is stored within languages, including about why places are important to us. That Native nations have so many names for Chicago tells us that those nations had relationships with this place, whether it was year-round, through seasonal rounds, or as needed for trade, diplomacy, or another reason. Look at the following translations of Indigenous names for Chicago:

• • What similarities do you see across the names?
  • What do these words show about the plant relatives that grew abundantly in the Chicago area prior to the construction of the city as it appears today? 
  • How do you imagine people interacted with them? What do these words tell you about what people wanted to know or remember about these lands?

Note to teachers: It’s important to emphasize that Indigenous peoples’ names for these places developed through generations, if not millenia, of local connections. We strongly discourage exercises wherein students might create their own “Indian names” for places or for themselves. Even when well intentioned to stretch students’ personal connections and creativity, such exercises can actually undermine the deep knowledge embedded within Indigenous languages. Instead, we encourage you to work with your students to understand the scientific, social, and historical information that words in Indigenous languages can tell us about specific places or events.

4. These Indigenous names for Chicago reflect millenia of Indigenous science for farming and raising crops. The names show us that many wild onions, or ramps, grew in Chicago for generations before colonialism. These plants were an important food for the Native peoples in this region. Ramps are hard to grow and easy to overharvest. That ramps grew well here for generations tells us that Native people were carefully stewarding the land and the plant population. 

• • How might naming a place after the food that grows there be helpful for people? 
  • What does this linguistic information tell us about Indigenous relationships with these lands? 

5. Myaamia artist Megan Sekulich created this image for the Indigenous Chicago story map. Megan writes, “The organic shapes seen throughout the piece, weaving and flowing around the rivers, plants, and animals, reference floral patterns seen in Great Lakes embroidery style Native beadwork.” She used the waterways of šikaakonki (Chicago) and northern Illinois as an outline, and she filled the space between each river with the plants and animals who call this place home, too. Many of these plants and animals are culturally significant to Myaamia people.

Look at the Myaamia words for the plants and animals in the image. What do you notice about the specific plants and animals Megan shows here? What does this tell you about Myaamia relationships to and knowledges about this place? 

Animals you may recognize in the image include:

Plants you may recognize include: 

(Feel free to color in this image – the artist encourages it!)

6. Summing it up! As you finish this exercise, reflect on the information you learned from working with Native languages. Why do you think historians might turn to Native languages for information about places and people’s histories with them?