Jean Baptiste Point du Sable was born around 1745, probably on the island of Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, to a French mariner and a mother of African descent who was enslaved. Little is known of his life before the 1770s. He is described as handsome and well educated, and as a man who spoke French, English, Spanish and several Native American languages, which served him well as a trader and mediator.
In the early 1770s he made his way to New Orleans and then up the Mississippi River, reaching Peoria, Illinois, where he married Kitihawa, a Potawatomi woman also known as Catherine, in a tribal ceremony. They had two children, Jean Baptiste Jr. and Suzanne, and in 1778 the marriage was formally recognised before a Catholic priest at Cahokia. Through the marriage he became kin to the Potawatomi.
During the American Revolution he was arrested by the British, but an officer's report noted that he had many friends who vouched for his good character. Soon after, Point du Sable settled on the north bank of the Chicago River near Lake Michigan, a place the Potawatomi called Eschecagou, and by the 1780s he had built a farm and a prosperous trading post that served Native Americans, British, French and American traders.
He was the first non-Native person to stay there and found a permanent settlement, and the City of Chicago officially recognises him as its first permanent non-Indigenous settler. His trading post and farm attracted pioneers, traders and trappers, and written descriptions suggest that his home was far from modest. Kitihawa was central to the community's relationships with the area's Indigenous peoples.
On 7 May 1800 Point du Sable sold his property and left Chicago, moving to Peoria and later to St. Charles, Missouri, where he died on 28 August 1818. His role was barely recognised until the middle of the twentieth century. Today the DuSable Museum of African American History and a Chicago high school bear his name, his homesite is a National Historic Landmark, and in 2021 Chicago renamed Lake Shore Drive for him. No portrait of him made in his lifetime is known.
- Recognised as the first permanent non-Indigenous settler of Chicago
- Built a prosperous trading post and farm at the mouth of the Chicago River
- Traded with Native Americans, British, French and American merchants
- His homesite is a National Historic Landmark
- Honoured by the DuSable Museum of African American History
- Partnership built the settlement. Point du Sable's marriage to Kitihawa and his fair dealing with many nations underpinned his success.
- Founders can be forgotten and recovered. His role went largely unrecognised until the twentieth century, and recovering it changed how Chicago tells its own story.