Editing Jean Baptiste Point du Sable (section)

==Theories and legends==

===Origins===
Though there is little historical evidence regarding Point du{{nbsp}}Sable's life before the 1770s, there are several theories and legends that give accounts of his early life. Writing in 1933, Quaife identified a French immigrant to Canada, Pierre Dandonneau,<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/dandonneau_pierre_2E.html| title = Raymond Douville, "DANDONNEAU, Lajeunesse, PIERRE," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 2, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–}}</ref> who acquired the title "Sieur de{{nbsp}}Sable" and whose descendants were known by both the names ''Dandonneau'' and ''Du{{nbsp}}Sable''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Quaife|1933|pp=32–33}}</ref> Quaife was unable to find a direct link to Point du{{nbsp}}Sable, but he identified descendants of Pierre Dandonneau as living around the [[Great Lakes region]] in Detroit, Mackinac, and St.{{nbsp}}Joseph. He speculated that Point du{{nbsp}}Sable's father may have been a member of this family, while his mother was likely an enslaved woman.<ref>{{Harvnb|Quaife|1933|pp=35–36}}</ref>

In 1951, Joseph Jeremie, a native of Haiti, published a pamphlet in which he said he was the great-grandson of Point du{{nbsp}}Sable.<ref>{{Harvnb|Graham|1953|p=172}}</ref> Based on family recollections and tombstone inscriptions, he claimed that Point du{{nbsp}}Sable was born in Saint-Marc in what was then [[Saint Domingue]], studied in France, and returned to the island to deal in coffee before traveling to French Louisiana. Historian and Point du{{nbsp}}Sable biographer<ref>{{Harvnb|Baumann|2005|p=61}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Pacyga|2009|pp=413–414}}</ref> John F. Swenson has called these claims "elaborate, undocumented assertions{{nbsp}}... in a fanciful biography".<ref name="Swenson">{{cite web|last=Swenson|first=John F|title=Jean Baptiste Point de Sable{{snd}}The Founder of Modern Chicago|url=http://www.earlychicago.com/essays.php?essay=7|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180613234433/http://www.earlychicago.com/essays.php?essay=7|work=Early Chicago|publisher=Early Chicago, Inc|access-date=8 August 2010|year=1999|archive-date=13 June 2018}}</ref>

====Fiction====
In 1953, Shirley Graham drew from the work of Quaife and Jeremie in a historical novel about Point du{{nbsp}}Sable. She described it as "not accurate history nor pure fiction", but rather "an imaginative interpretation of all the known facts".<ref>{{Harvnb|Graham|1953|p=175}}</ref> This book presented Point du{{nbsp}}Sable as the son of the [[Chief Mate|mate]] on a pirate ship, the ''Black Sea Gull'', and a freedwoman called Suzanne.<ref>{{Harvnb|Graham|1953|pp=3–11}}</ref> Despite lack of evidence and the continued debate about Point du{{nbsp}}Sable's early life, parentage, and birthplace, this popular story has been repeated and widely presented as being definitive.<ref name="Alejandra">{{cite news|last=Cancino|first=Alejandra|title=Michigan Avenue bridge officially renamed DuSable Bridge|url=http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/10/michigan-avenue-bridge-officially-renamed-dusable-bridge.html|access-date=16 October 2010|newspaper=Chicago Breaking News|date=15 October 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101019044214/http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/10/michigan-avenue-bridge-officially-renamed-dusable-bridge.html <!--Added by H3llBot-->|archive-date=19 October 2010}}</ref><ref name="WLS-TV">{{cite news|title=Michigan Avenue Bridge becomes DuSable Bridge|url=https://abc7chicago.com/archive/7726430/|access-date=17 October 2010|newspaper=WLS-TV|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101018072553/http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news%2Flocal&id=7726430|archive-date=18 October 2010|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Peoria===
In 1815, a land claim that had been submitted by Nicholas Jarrot to the land commissioners at [[Kaskaskia, Illinois|Kaskaskia]], [[Illinois Territory]], was approved. In the claim Jarrot asserted that a "Jean Baptiste Poinstable" had been "head of a family at Peoria in the year 1783, and before and after that year", and that he "had a house built and cultivated land between the Old Fort and the new settlement in the year 1780".<ref>{{cite journal|title=Kaskaskia Land Claims|journal=American State Papers, Public Lands|date=December 1815|volume=3|issue=233|url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsp&fileName=030/llsp030.db&recNum=15|access-date=6 September 2010|page=4}}</ref> This document has been taken by Quaife and other historians as evidence that Point du{{nbsp}}Sable lived at [[Peoria, Illinois|Peoria]] on the [[Illinois River]] prior to going north to settle in Chicago.<ref name="Quaife1933p43">{{Harvnb|Quaife|1933|p=43}}</ref> However, other records demonstrate that Point du{{nbsp}}Sable was living and working under the British at the Pinery in Michigan in the early 1780s.<ref name="Mitts" /> The Kaskaskia land commissioners identified many fraudulent land claims,<ref>{{cite book|last=Alvord|first=Clarence Walworth|title=The Illinois country, 1673–1818|year=1920|publisher=Illinois Centennial Commission|pages=[https://archive.org/details/illinoiscountry100alvo/page/417 417]–427|url=https://archive.org/details/illinoiscountry100alvo|access-date=6 September 2010}}</ref> including two previously submitted in the name of Point du{{nbsp}}Sable.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Land Claims in the District of Kaskaskia|journal=American State Papers, Public Lands|date=January 1811|volume=2|issue=180|url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsp&fileName=029/llsp029.db&Page=122|access-date=6 September 2010|page=122}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Land Claims in the District of Kaskaskia|journal=American State Papers, Public Lands|date=January 1811|volume=2|issue=180|url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsp&fileName=029/llsp029.db&Page=130|access-date=6 September 2010|page=130}}</ref> Nicholas Jarrot, the claimant, was involved in many false claims,<ref>{{cite web|last=Swenson|first=John F|title=Peoria, Its Early History Re-examined|url=http://www.earlychicago.com/essays.php?essay=8|work=Early Chicago|publisher=Early Chicago Inc|access-date=6 September 2010|archive-date=10 July 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110710164150/http://www.earlychicago.com/essays.php?essay=8|url-status=dead}}</ref> and Swenson suggests that this one was also fraudulent, made without Point du{{nbsp}}Sable's knowledge.<ref name="Swenson" /> Although perhaps in conflict with some of the above information, other historical records suggest that Point du{{nbsp}}Sable bought land in Peoria from J.{{nbsp}}B. Maillet on 13{{nbsp}}March 1773 and sold it to Isaac Darneille in 1783, before he became the first "permanent" resident of Chicago.<ref>Franke, Judith A., ''French Peoria and the Illinois Country 1673–1846'', Illinois State Museum Society, Springfield, IL 1995 p.{{nbsp}}37 and ''The Inhabitants of Three French Villages at Peoria, Illinois'', compiled by Ernest East, 1933, and included in Judith Franke's book p.{{nbsp}}99, {{isbn|978-0897921404}}</ref>

===Departure from Chicago===
Point du Sable left Chicago in 1800. He sold his property to [[Jean La Lime]], a trader from [[Quebec]], and moved to the Missouri River valley, at that time part of Spanish Louisiana. The reason for his departure is unknown.<ref name="Quaife1933p43" /> By 1804, John Kinzie, another early Chicago settler, had bought the former du Sable house. Kinzie's daughter-in-law, Juliette Magill Kinzie, suggested in her 1852 memoir that "perhaps he [du Sable] was disgusted at not being elected to a similar dignity [great chief] by the Pottowattamies".<ref>{{Harvnb|Kinzie|1856|p=191}}</ref>

In 1874, Nehemiah Matson elaborated on this story, claiming that Point du{{nbsp}}Sable was a slave from Virginia who had moved with his master to [[Lexington, Kentucky]], in 1790. According to Matson, Point du{{nbsp}}Sable became a zealous Catholic in order to convince a Jesuit missionary to declare him chief of the local Native Americans, but after they refused to accept him as their chief, he left Chicago.<ref>{{cite book|last=Matson|first=Nehemiah|title=French and Indians of Illinois River|year=1874|publisher=Republican Job Printing Establishment|pages=[https://archive.org/details/frenchindiansofi00mats/page/187 187]–191|url=https://archive.org/details/frenchindiansofi00mats|access-date=7 September 2010}}</ref> Quaife dismisses both of these stories as being fictional.<ref name="Quaife1913p139" />

In her 1953 novel, Graham suggests that Point du Sable left Chicago because he was angered that the [[Federal government of the United States|US government]] wanted him to buy the land on which he had lived and called his own for the previous two decades.<ref>{{Harvnb|Graham|1953|pp=161–167}}</ref> The 1795 [[Treaty of Greenville]], which ended the [[Northwest Indian War]], and the subsequent westward migration of Native Americans away from the Chicago area might also have influenced his decision.<ref name="Pacyga13" />{{#tag:ref|The Treaty of Greenville ceded Native-American rights to a substantial amount of territory in what is now the Midwest, including "[o]ne piece of land six miles square, at the mouth of Chikago river".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/greenvil.asp |title=The Treaty of Greenville 1795 |website=Yale University – Avalon Project |access-date=25 January 2018}}</ref>|group=n}}