Jean duSable: father of Chicago

by Lawrence Cortesi

A biography of the black Haitian who was the first non-Indian to settle and establish a trading community on the site of present-day Chicago.

177 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1972

Reviews

[R.G. Ziemer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a thorough narrative of DuSable's life and times, more of a biography for younger readers than a scholarly work. As a native Chicagoan, though, I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the city's founding father. Growing up, my generation never heard much about DuSable, a condition I assume has been addressed in more recent years of urban education post-Civil Rights Era. As a writer and amateur historian I'm encouraged to read more on this period of Chicago history. THe author here seems to paint a smoother picture of life on the Great Lakes frontier than I had imagined. I also was under the impression that factual details of DuSable's life were scant, so I suspect Cortesi's narrative fills in a lot of the blank spaces with optimistic speculation. Nevertheless, the story is firmly based in historical fact, so I learned a lot about the early settlement and subsequent struggle for independence among the Pottawatomie and other Native American tribes of the region.