Historian, digital archivist and researcher at Newberry Library Rose Miron gave a short talk on the role and contributions of Indigenous women to their communities in early colonial Chicago on Sept. 24 in the Wood Hall basement.
The talk was preceded by a longer lecture the day before on Mohican heritage tourism at the Dodd Center for Human Rights and both were for the Gender and History Seminar series. In Miron’s introduction, a presenter said that there would be future Wednesday history lecture workshops.
Miron began her talk by showing the culmination of her team’s research: the Indigenous Chicago archival website. The website has a wide variety of resources for preserving and teaching the Indigenous culture of Chicago.
Miron called her talk “a work-in-progress,” as she knows she has much more to research and piece together pertaining to the history of women in early colonial Chicago.
“Chicago as a location is a very complicated place,” she said. Even the name “Chicago” is complicated, meaning something close to “stinky onion” in English. Miron also cited the avenues of canoe transportation by rivers.
Miron said that Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, possibly a Haitian man, was the first settler in Chicago in around 1779. Fur trader Antoine Ouilmette was the first white settler in Chicago. Both men married Indigenous women. Du Sable married the Potawatomi Kitihawa and Ouilmette married the French Potawatomi Archange. Miron focused her talk on these two women’s lives and actions within their intentional marriages to settlers to support their communities.
Women, especially Indigenous women, often served as interpreters and translators between the Indigenous and settlers. However, the lack of focus on Indigenous people and women “carries into today” in the memorialization of du Sable and Ouilmette in Chicago’s public history. Miron said such memorialization comes with the act of “erasing Native people in the process.” The little representation that the Indigenous had was stereotypical and racist in nature.
There were many maps, both historical and practical for the modern day, displayed during the talk. In one of the historical maps, Miron drew attention to how the cartographer wrote in Chicago, meaning that “the people who drew the map had engaged with Natives.”
Miron then shifted the conversation to two words used to define settlers: “ndenwémagen,” meaning “relatives” and “myeg-yegwan,” meaning “foreigner.” Many settlers’ goals were to become considered a “relative” by the Indigenous.
In the Battle of Fort Dearborn, Kitihawa let someone take refuge in her house. This is yet another example of these women using their power from marriage to help others and their communities.
There was a treaty established in 1829 that seemed like an unfair compromise and bribe in favor of the settlers, but Miron said that, contextualizing the conditions of the era, “The leaders of the negotiation of this treaty did the best they could do” for the sake of their people.
In 2024, the first Indigenous reservation in Illinois was founded, reclaiming upwards of 100 acres of stolen land from the treaty. In the past there have been petitions sent to the United States president of the time about timber that was stolen from Indigenous land too.
After the talk, there was a brief Q&A session. One attendee asked about the movements of Indigenous people.
Miron explained that the Indigenous people of Chicago would move seasonally. For example, in the summer Chicago was a primary fishing spot, and in the fall the land was best for hunting. She also said that the plains of the Chicago area used to have buffalo.
Another audience member recalled that Miron hadn’t spent much time discussing the burial sites of the Indigenous people in Chicago and asked if there is any material evidence related to the subject.
Miron said that the map was drawn from archaeological evidence. However, she said, “We did not make them public because of issues such as desecration of Native land.”