Kitihawa Point Du Sable (also known by her Christian name, Catherine) was a Potawatomi woman who, with her husband Jean Baptiste, established the first permanent settlement in what is now the city of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. By the late 1700s, Kitihawa and her husband had set up their farm and trading post on the Chicago river.

Biography

There are no known records of Kitihawa's life before her marriage to Jean Baptiste. Kitihawa and her husband were married in the 1770s in a Potawatomi ceremony, followed by a Catholic ceremony on October 27, 1788, in

Cahokia The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site ( 11 MS 2) is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south- ...

, Illinois. Kitihawa and Jean Baptiste had two children, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable Jr., and Suzanne.

Representations in arts, entertainment, and media

* A December 2019 article in the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'' mentions a proposal to rename Lake Shore Drive for Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. The article suggests rethinking the history of the city and considering the centuries that Native American people used the area as a trading post -- and renaming Lake Shore Drive for Kitihawa instead. * In August 2019
Floating Museum
created an art installation called "Founders," which features Kitihawa, her husband, Jean Baptiste, and a child. The goal of the piece is to bring attention to the fact that Chicago was originally founded by a Haitian man and a Potawatomi woman. As part of this installation, the poem "Kitihawa Speaks," written by Osage poet

Elise Paschen Elise Paschen (born January 1959) is an American poet and member of the Osage Nation. She is the co-founder and co-editor of Poetry in Motion, a program which places poetry posters in subways and buses across the country. Career and education Th ...

, was displayed in CTA Greenline cars. * A photographic art exhibit called "Kitihawa's Chandelier" by Nicholas Henry, "honors the historical, cultural and racial fusion of an African and Native American."

References

{{reflist Potawatomi people