By the end of this exercise, I can… 

• explain how historians use maps from different perspectives to make sense of the past
• analyze how maps can reveal information about Indigenous histories 

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.1. Use maps (created using geospatial and related technologies, if possible), satellite images and photographs to display and explain the spatial patterns of physical, cultural, political, economic and environmental characteristics.

Maps and Colonialism 

Indigenous people have long created maps to keep record of lands, waters, relations with each other, and the stars. These maps don’t necessarily look like European maps. Instead of being printed on paper, they might be painted or beaded onto leather, etched into bark, and told orally through stories and place names. Maps like these show important information about places, histories, and relationships between people. Indigenous map-makers today draw inspiration from Indigenous mapping traditions to represent Indigenous peoples’ continued relationships with places. 

When Europeans arrived, they didn’t recognize Indigenous people already had maps because they didn’t look like the ones they were used to and sometimes showed different kinds of information. They decided to create new ones. They did this by writing places down on paper in their journals and diaries. Some of these maps made their way back to Europe. Copies of these maps were then shared with European explorers and settlers. 

As settlers moved through the Chicago region, they attempted to map the area for several purposes. First, the maps that early explorers and settlers created in North America helped with navigation. Explorers used these maps to learn about waterways, food sources, and the location of various Native communities. Settlers needed knowledge about how to move through Native spaces socially and geographically. Having this knowledge eventually fueled their desire to control the space.  However, these maps could never have been created without heavy influence from Native people. During the early contact period, Jesuits and other early explorers often consulted with Native people at trading centers like Michilimackinac (present-day Mackinaw Island) before going on a journey. They knew Native people had deep knowledge of their territories. They asked Native people to help them understand seasonal changes or the present location of various Native groups, which they then marked on their maps.

Settlers also created navigational maps for military purposes. These maps were often made by people who were not professional mapmakers. For example, an anonymous author created the 1812 Hay Map for Illinois Governor Ninian Edwards. Edwards wanted information about the land ro invade Indigenous territories. By the time the Hay Map was created, it was common for white traders to marry Native women to build kinship ties with Native communities. This was necessary for both their survival and successful trading, and it also meant that traders could access information for mapping. Edwards reached out to several people for information before starting his military invasion. One of those people (and possibly the mapmaker) was French fur trader Louis Buisson, who was married to Sheshi (Suzanne Chevalier), a Potawatomi woman.

Artistic versions of printed maps were used to increase public support for colonialism. Many of these maps romanticized the so-called “New World,” by including colorful images of Native people, plants, and animals. Their goal was to make the “New World” look interesting to investors, so that others would give money to expand colonialism.  Others showed vast empty territory, pretending that the land didn’t have people living on it already. Many of the maps showed areas that settlers had never traveled, and most of the cartographers had never been to the “New World”  so they had often never even seen the land they were drawing. Instead, they used written narratives and measurements of Jesuit expeditions that were sent back to Europe. There could be up to a fifty-year gap between the Jesuits taking their notes and the printing and publication of the maps they created. A lot can change in fifty years! The 1718 Nicolas de Fer map is a good example of this type of map. While these maps aren’t always very accurate, they do tell us a lot about European plans for expansion. They also demonstrate the presence and importance of Indigenous people. This shows that the “New World” was actually a Native world that explorers were entering (not discovering!). 

Colonial powers also used early maps to identify natural resources that could be taken for various reasons. It was common for early French maps to chart copper, saltpeter, and iron mines, among other natural resources. This could help them tell people with power back in Europe about an area’s potential for exploitation. The 1673 map from the Marquette expedition shows various natural resources. This map circulated widely and was meant to inspire support for future colonial endeavors. Once they saw these resources, Europeans used maps to “claim” specific areas in their name, even though Native people were already living there. 

An Established Native Place

Before the city as we know it existed, the many Indigenous nations who lived and had long standing relationships with this place knew it as Zhegagoynak, Gaa-zhigaagwanzhikaag, Zhigaagong, 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. 

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

Treaties and Removal 

Native nations have inherent sovereignty. This means that their right to govern themselves and their people is essential and predates the United States. In fact, for the founders of the United States to create a new country, they needed Native nations to recognize them as a real government. 

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. To clarify expectations for land use in shared or neighboring spaces, they created treaties. The treaties that outlined how Native nations shared or divided space were not one-time papers. Instead, these treaties were rules 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, treaty-making was a way of ensuring sustainable, healthy, peaceful coexistence through relationships and respect.

Settlers handled legal agreements and diplomacy differently. Americans inherited ideas from European legal traditions that prioritized individually held property. This property could be owned, transferred, and modified. These could be one-time agreements, purchases, or transfers and did not require relationships beyond the single transaction. Even though settlers were newcomers on Indigenous lands, they chose to import their existing ideas about land. They chose not to recognize Indigenous laws as valid.

American leaders who wanted Indigenous land in the Midwest believed that it was “destined” for the United States to expand West. They thought that Native people did not deserve the land they had because they were not Christian. American leaders believed that these lands had been given to the United States by God. This would later be called “manifest destiny.” These beliefs influenced the tactics that US officials used to secure land upon entering into treaty talks. You can read more about the specific tactics U.S. negotiators used in Module 2, Supporting Question 2. 

Treaty-making was supposed to set firm borders for where Euro-Americans would settle, but settlers regularly ignored treaty boundaries. More settlers meant more conflict and fewer available resources, which pressured Native nations to cede more land. Many Native leaders signed treaties because they believed that peace might be found in the lands that the treaties promised. In the treaty talks, Americans promised to permanently set aside lands for Native people where they would have enough food and be free from arriving settlers. Native leaders who accepted this trade believed it offered the best possible futures for future generations of their people. This demonstrates how Native leaders had to make difficult decisions during treaty talks. They had to take care of their communities at the time, and they also had to think about the needs of future generations. 

The end of treaties in this region resulted in the removal of Indigenous people who the U.S. thought had lost access to their lands through the treaties. Under removal, the U.S. pressured, threatened, and even physically forced Indigenous people to leave and move further west. Removal was devastating. It meant losing consistent access to the food, medicines, places, homes, and sometimes people that had made them who they were. In spite of removal, Indigenous people have never given up their claims to and connections with these lands. 

Sources

Bowes, John P. Land Too Good for Indians: Northern Indian Removal. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016). 

Lewis, G. Malcolm, ed. Cartographic Encounters: Perspectives on Native American Mapmaking and Map Use. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. 

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

Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake. “Looking after Gdoo-Naaganinaa: Precolonial Nishnaabeg Diplomatic and Treaty Relationships.” Wicaso Sa Review 23, no. 2 (2008): 29–42.

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

Warhus, Marc. Another America: Native American Maps and the History of Our Land (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997). 

Wilkins, David E. and Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark. American Indian Politics and the American Political System. 4th ed. (Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017). 

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. As historians, we build our knowledge about the past by interpreting sources. Among these sources are maps. This means we have to be able to interpret visual representations of places (like maps). Review the information in the Background section above. Note the differences in Indigenous and settler maps in terms of form and purpose.

2. Indigenous nations today often share information about their histories on their government websites. The list below offers some examples of how Native nations whose homelands include Chicago talk about their homelands. 

Note that many nations in the list use current state boundaries as reference points – this is to help the reader connect to recognizable places today, but these state lines did not exist until very recently. While Native nations have relationships with their homelands since time immemorial, current state boundaries for the “lower 48” were only set as recently as 1912!

As you read through the list, create a visualization that shows where these homelands are. Which nations’ homelands overlap? How might this have changed over time? What bodies of water shape these boundaries?

3. Now, you’re going to look at three different maps. To prepare, create a chart like the one below. Fill this out as you go!

4. Take a look at this place name map of the western Great Lakes created by Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Advanced Language Specialist Kyle Malott and the Indigenous Chicago routes map. Together, these maps show the Indigenous names for dozens of rivers, harvesting sites, lakes, and villages.