Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, Born a free Black in St. Marc, Saint Dominique (Haiti). The son of a French mariner and an African-born slave mother. Jean Baptiste was taken to France for an education by his father. In the early 1770's Jean Baptiste was ship wrecked at the mouth of the Mississippi. With the aid of some Jesuit priests he made his way north to what is now the Peoria, Illinois area. While many whites feared for their lives at the hands of the local Potawatomi Indians, Jean Baptiste was unmolested. The Potawatomi had great respect for him, adopted him into the tribe and presented him with a wife he called Catherine. He moved north to an area the Indians called Eschikagou, (Chicago) “land of the bad smell”. At the mouth of the Chicago River he established a trading post in 1779 on the North Bank . In short order his trading post became the main supply station for traders, trappers and Indians and a key route to Detroit and the Canadian frontier.