died Aug. 28, 1818, St. Charles, Mo., U.S. black pioneer trader
and founder of the settlement that later became the city of
Chicago. Du Sable, whose French father had moved to Haiti and
married a black woman there, is believed to have been a
freeborn. At some time in the 1770s he went to the Great Lakes
area of North America, settling on the shore of Lake Michigan at
the mouth of the Chicago River, with his Potawatomi wife,
Kittihawa (Catherine). His loyalty to the French and the
Americans led to his arrest in 1779 by the British, who took him
to Fort Mackinac. From 1780 to 1783 or 1784 he managed for his
captors a trading post called the Pinery on the St. Clair River
in present-day Michigan, after which he returned to the site of
Chicago. By 1790 Du Sable's establishment there had become an
important link in the region's fur and grain trade. In 1800 he
sold out and moved to Missouri, where he continued as a farmer
and trader until his death. But his 20-year residence on the
shores of Lake Michigan had establ