RESOLUTION RECOGNIZING MARCH 4TH AS JEAN BAPTISTE POINT DU SABLE DAY
WHEREAS, The members ofthe City Council of Chicago wish to recognize, honor, and commemorate Jean Baptiste Point du Sable as the first permanent, non-Indigenous settler of what would later become the City of Chicago; and
WHEREAS, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable (also spelled Point de Sable, Point au Sable, Point Sable, and Pointe DuSable) was born in St. Marc, St. Domingue (present-day Haiti) around 1745 to a French father and a Black African slave mother; little else is known of his life prior to the 1770s; and
WHEREAS, During his career, the areas around the Great Lakes and in the Illinois Country where Point du Sable settled and traded changed hands several times between France, Britain, Spain, and the new United States; and
WHEREAS, Described as handsome and well educated, Point du Sable married a Native American woman, Kitiwaha, and they had two children; and
WHEREAS, In 1779, during the American Revolutionary War, Point du Sable was arrested by the British military on suspicion of being an American rebel sympathizer, and in the early 1780s, he worked for the British lieutenant-governor of Michilimackinac on an estate in what is now the city of St. Clair, Michigan, north of Detroit; and
WHEREAS, Point du Sable is first recorded as living at the mouth ofthe Chicago River in a trader's journal of early 1790; by then, he had established an extensive and prosperous trading settlement in what later became the City of Chicago; and
WHEREAS, Point du Sable sold his Chicago River property in 1800 and moved to the port of St. Charles, where he was licensed to run a Missouri River ferry; Point du Sable's successful role in developing the Chicago River settlement was little recognized until the mid-20th century; and
WHEREAS, While there is a school, museum, harbor, park, and bridge in the City named in Point du Sable's honor, the City must do more to honor its founder and educate its residents on this impor...
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