The beginnings of Chicago

 Just south of Kenosha

- Click here for it.

In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, a Native American tribe who had succeeded the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples in this region.

The first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was explorer Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago".

In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the US for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn. This was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the British and their native allies. It was later rebuilt.

After the War of 1812, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833 and sent west of the Mississippi River during Indian Removal.