1779 Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Little is known about the Chicago area from 1700 until about 1779 when the pioneer settler of Chicago, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, an African American from Sainte-Domingue (Haiti), built the first permanent settlement at the mouth of the river just east of the present Michigan Avenue Bridge on the north bank. Records do not agree on the precise spelling of the name of the first settler and it may be found variously as Pointe de Sable, Au Sable, Point Sable, Sabre and Pointe de Saible. DuSable, who appears to have been a man of good taste and refinement, was a husbandman, a carpenter, a cooper, a miller, and probably a distiller. In DuSable's home, which he shared with his Indian wife, the first marriage in Chicago was performed, the first election was held, and the first court handed down justice. The religion of the first Chicagoan was Catholic and every contemporary report about DuSable describes him as a man of substance who started the story of Chicago as well as the story of the African American in Chicago.
