Chicago's Authentic Founder: Jean Baptiste Point Dusable or Haitian Secret Agent in the Old Northwest Outpost 1745-1818

This book is about DuSable, his accomplishments, and the historical development of the Old Midwest, where he lived. The author provides a vivid description of the struggle between France, England, and Spain over the new world resources made possible by the Columbian voyages. Caught in the cross fire was the Island of Haiti, where DuSable was born a free black man. As a free man, he decided to explore parts of the mainland of the French empire. Upon arrival to North America, DuSable stablished himself in Louisiana. After losing the Seven Year’s War, the French surrendered their possession west of the Mississippi (Missouri, Louisiana, and beyond) to the Spanish. They also ceded their land east of the Mississippi (Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc.) to the British. DuSable moved from Louisiana to Peoria, Illinois, and later to Chicago. Upon his arrival in Chicago, DuSable had instant chemistry with the Potawatomi, the most dominant indigenous tribe in the region at that time. He married a Potawatomi woman and started building an emporium where wheat was cultivated, cattle was raised and slaughtered for consumption, and lumber was prepared for construction at the DuSable’s establishment located where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan. Mr. Rosier examines DuSable’s commercial ventures, his close association with the natives, his embrace of the area’s ethnic diversity, and his ascendance into the Potawatomi power structure very extensively. Rosier concludes that while all of these social and political involvement were necessary, and would probably prove fatal otherwise, DuSable’s enterprises played a pivotal role in bringing about the trading explosion that gave birth to the city of Chicago.Unfortunately, this promising city attracted the envy and greed of John Kinzie, an Englishman and slaveholder wanting to take over DuSable’s empire. With gimmicks and coercion, Kinzie succeeded somehow in getting DuSable to leave Chicago, while he murdered Jean La Lime, the man who had bought the DuSable’s estate.The author finds an eerie association which explains why DuSable had not received his well-deserved recognition as the founder of the city of Chicago. As Haiti extirpated itself from the tight grip of the European powers (France) and proclaimed its independence in 1804, after 14 years of war, in which France was defeated, the slave states and former enemies joined forces vying to destroy the infant and only free black state. To planters and sympathizers of slavery, Haiti and DuSable represented an opposition that had to be silenced, buried, not celebrated. There was no difference; everything inspired hatred toward Haiti and anything black. Consequently, it was unthinkable to credit a black man for the founding of Chicago. Chicago’s Authentic Founder restores DuSable to his rightful place as the founder of the city of Chicago. On the strength of the evidence submitted, I highly recommend this book.

I expected the book to be primarily about details of the founding of Chicago. There is too muchinformation about a larger area.Control by several countries