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Markers of Distinction

Catherine (1756–1809)
and John-Baptiste du Sable (1745–1818)
Fur traders and farmers

Considered the founders of Chicago, Catherine and
Jean-Baptiste Point du Sable established a fur
trading post on this site in the 1770s or early 1780s,
approximately a half-century before Chicago was
incorporated. This commercial enterprise helped
shape the American government’s vision of the
potential of this area and therefore its decision to
build the first Fort Dearborn in 1803 across the river,
at what is now the intersection of Michigan Avenue
and Wacker Drive.

Much about the du Sables’ lives is unknown. Scholars say Jean-Baptiste probably was born in Saint Dominique (now Haiti) in the West Indies. At least one of his parents was a slave; he is best described as Afro-French. Catherine was Potawatomi; her Native American name is unknown. Native women who married fur traders and converted to Catholicism, as she did, constructed female kin networks that linked fur settlements throughout the Great Lakes and Mississippi River valley, and Catherine’s connections were essential to her husband’s commercial success.

By the time the du Sable family left Chicago in 1800, their prosperous farm included a large house, a bake house, smokehouse, poultry house, stable, barn, 2 mules, 30 cattle, 38 hogs and 44 hens. Du Sable’s post, with its diverse clientele of Indian, French and American traders, established a tradition of commerce that would provide the foundation of Chicago’s economy for decades to come.