Editing Fort Dearborn (section)

==Background==
[[File:Plan of first Fort Dearborn.png|thumb|right|250px|Diagram of the first Fort Dearborn]]

===Historic events===
Human activity in the Chicago area prior to the arrival of European explorers is mostly unknown, although it evidently served as a crossing point among many different peoples. <!-- What about oral histories of tribes and archeological work? -->In 1673, an expedition headed by [[Louis Jolliet]] and [[Jacques Marquette]] was the first recorded to have crossed the [[Chicago Portage]] and traveled along the Chicago River.<ref>{{Harvnb|Quaife|1913|pp=22–24}}</ref> Marquette returned in 1674, and camped for a few days near the mouth of the river. He moved to the portage, where he camped through the winter of 1674–75. Joliet and Marquette did not report any Native Americans living near the Chicago River area at that time.<ref>{{Harvnb|Quaife|1933|p=18}}</ref> Archaeologists, however, have discovered numerous historic Indian village sites dating to that time elsewhere in the Chicago region.<ref>{{cite web | last=Swenson| first=John F| title=Chicago: Meaning of the Name and Location of Pre-1800 European Settlements| url=http://www.earlychicago.com/essays.php?essay=1| work=Early Chicago| publisher=Early Chicago Inc.| access-date=September 13, 2010}}</ref>

In 1682, [[René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle]] had claimed a large territory (including the Chicago area), for France.<ref>{{cite book | last=Worth| first=Richard| title=Louisiana, 1682-1803| year=2006| publisher=National Geographic Books| isbn=978-0-7922-6544-3| page=19}}</ref> Two of [[René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle|de La Salle]]'s men built a stockade at the portage in the winter of 1682/1683.<ref>{{cite book | last=Mason| first=Edward| title=Chapters from Illinois History| publisher=Herbert S. Stone and Company| location=Chicago| year=1901| page=[https://archive.org/details/chaptersfromilli00maso/page/144 144] | url=https://archive.org/details/chaptersfromilli00maso| access-date=August 25, 2010}}</ref>

In 1763, following defeat in the [[French and Indian War]], the French ceded this area to [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]]. It became a region within their [[Province of Quebec (1763–1791)|Province of Quebec]]. Great Britain later ceded the area to the [[United States]] (at the end of the [[American Revolutionary War]]), although the [[Northwest Territory]] remained under ''[[de facto]]'' British control until about 1796.<ref>{{Harvnb|Quaife|1933|pp=63–64}}</ref>

Following defeat of several Native American tribes in the [[Northwest Indian War]] of 1785–1795, the [[Treaty of Greenville]] was signed between the US and several chiefs at Fort Greenville (now [[Greenville, Ohio]]), on August 3, 1795. As part of the terms of this treaty, a coalition of [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]] and [[Frontier|Frontiers men]], known as the [[Western Confederacy]], ceded to the [[United States]] large parts of modern-day [[Ohio]], [[Michigan]], [[Indiana]], [[Wisconsin]], and Illinois. This included "six miles square" centered from the mouth of the Chicago River for the establishment of a U.S. military base.<ref>{{cite web |author=Charles J. Kappler |title=Treaty With the Wyandot, etc., 1795 |url=http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/wya0039.htm#mn4 |year=1904 |work=U.S. Government treaties with Native Americans |publisher=Oklahoma State University Library |access-date=April 17, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101108135038/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/wya0039.htm#mn4 |archive-date=November 8, 2010 }}</ref><ref>[http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/477.html "Fort Dearborn"]; [[Encyclopedia of Chicago]] online; accessed August 8, 2009]</ref>

===Local events===
A French-Jesuit mission, the [[Mission of the Guardian Angel]], was founded somewhere in the vicinity in 1696, but was abandoned around 1700.<ref name="Briggs">{{cite encyclopedia | last=Briggs| first=Winstanley| title=Mission of the Guardian Angel| url=http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1729.html| encyclopedia=The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago| publisher=Chicago Historical Society| access-date=August 6, 2010| year=2005}}</ref> The [[Fox Wars]] effectively closed the area to Europeans in the first part of the 18th century. An early non-native to re-settle in the area may have been a trader named Guillory, who might have had a trading-post near [[Wolf Point, Chicago|Wolf Point]] on the Chicago River around 1778.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Meehan| first=Thomas A.| title=Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the First Chicagoan| journal=Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society| year=1963| volume=56| issue=3| pages=439–453| jstor=40190620}}</ref>

[[Jean Baptiste Point du Sable]], a French-speaking trader and settler of African descent, built a prosperous farm and trading post near the mouth of the Chicago River in the 1780s, at a site directly across the river from the future fort.<ref>{{Harvnb|Pacyga|2009|p=12}}</ref> A settlement developed there and he is widely regarded as the founder of Chicago.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Baumann| first=Timothy E.| title=The Du Sable Grave Project in St. Charles, Missouri| journal=The Missouri Archaeologist| date=December 2005| volume=66| pages=59–76}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Graham| first=Shirley| title=Jean Baptiste Pointe De Sable Founder of Chicago| year=1953| publisher=Julian Messner| url=https://archive.org/details/jeanbaptistepoin009076mbp| access-date=April 16, 2011}}</ref> [[Antoine Ouilmette]] is the next recorded resident of Chicago; he claimed to have settled at the mouth of the Chicago River in July 1790.<ref>Letter of Antoine Ouilmette to John H. Kinzie, June 1, 1839; reproduced in {{cite book | last=Blanchard| first=Rufus| title=Discovery and Conquests of the Northwest, with the History of Chicago (volume 1)| year=1898| publisher=R. Blanchard and Company| page=[https://archive.org/details/discoveryconques00blan/page/574 574]| url=https://archive.org/details/discoveryconques00blan| access-date=September 7, 2010}}</ref>