FOUNDATION MYTHS AND REALITIES IN THE BORDERLAND THAT BECAME CHICAGO

Ann Durkin Keating, Rising Up From Indian Country: The Battle of Fort Dearborn and the Birth of Chicago (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 2012) ("The Potawatomis and their allies who fought against the United States at Chicago in August 1812 had their own motivations that were related to, but not the same as, those of the United States or Great Britain. They were fighting to reduce the influence of the United States in their country by driving the United States out entirely--or at least those settlers intent on destroying Indian Country. The Potawatomis and their allies did not see the arrival of American settlers and institutions as progress, but a catastrophe." "From this perspective, Chicago did not develop first from a resource-rich agricultural hinterland that 'called forth' a great city. There were no railroads or stockyards or steel mills. Instead, Chicago emerged from the imperial rivalries of the trans-Appalachian West--at the crossroads of multi-racial and multi-ethnic communities. It is not a story of the heartland, but of a time when Chicago was part of the borderland between competing colonial and tribal claims. The Chicago that emerges from this story results from a uniquely American mix of people and shifting circumstances, whose advantages only came into focus when American sovereignty successfully overcame alternatives like a permanent Indian Country or an extended period of British colonial rule. Chicago developed because of American conquest. It is as much a part of the narrative of manifest destiny as the vast expanses of the Great West." "Id. at 5."[Jean] Lalime knew as well as anyone that there was no monolithic U.S. presence at Chicago. The garrison was an insult to many local Potawatomis and their neighbors, who rejected the Greenville Treaty and subsequent land cessions. With a force well under a hundred, Captain Whistler's outpost remained ever vulnerable to attack. The work of Indian Agent Charles Jouett provided a counterpoint to military action. He cultivated good relations with area Potawatomis through the distribution of annuities and other gifts. At the same time, the U.S. factor, Matthew Irwin, offered goods at the government trading house at competitive prices to Potawatomis willing to come to Fort Dearborn to trade. The United States sent out mixed signals to Chicago to area Indians: offering friendship and building a fort; promoting peace and threatening war; offering gifts and taking land. These contradictions were inherent in the official policies of the Jefferson administration and made Chicago a place of opportunity and danger." Id. at 65. "While the militias in Illinois and Indiana mainly attacked empty Indian villages during the fall of 1812, they also threatened metis trading villages. For the militiamen, the French and metis traders were as much a part of the Indian Country that they sought to destroy as the Indians themselves. As well, many suspected that the traders were in league with Great Britain." Id. at 180.  "Foundation myths tell us as much about contemporary affairs as they do about what took place in the earliest days of a place, a people, or a nation. They shape our views on politics and society today. In light of their crucial importance to the present and the future, I would encourage Chicagoans to adopt a more inclusive foundation story that encompasses the whole of the American era, one in which Chicago was part of the Indian Country of the Western Great Lakes." Id. at 245.).