Front:
Jean Baptiste
Pointe Du Sable
22
OSA
FEB
20
1987
60601
Back:
JEAN BAPTISTE DU SABLE
First Day of Issue: February 20, 1987
First Issue Location: Chicago, Illinois
The tenth issue in the Black Heritage series honors the
founder of Chicago, Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable. As
a young man in the late eighteenth century, he was lured
by stories of riches and opportunity in the fur trade. Thus,
he set out for the Great Lakes-Mississippi River region.
Du Sable followed the routes of Father Marquette and
Louis Joliet as he traveled up the Mississippi River to the
Chicago River and its mouth at Lake Michigan. Here,
he established a fur trading center in 1773. The native
Potawatamie Indians embraced Du Sable and held him
in high regard; thus, his trading post – later named
Chicago – flourished. Du Sable took a Potawatamie
Indian woman as his wife and watched his family and
the little frontier community grow. His wealth increased
with a British land grant of some four hundred acres near
present-day Peoria. In 1800, Du Sable sold his land
holdings and left Chicago for St. Charles, Missouri, where
he died in 1818 while living with his son.
No. 87-7
©1987 The Maximum Card Collection
A Division of Unicover Corporation . Cheyenne, WY 82008-0007
Original painting by John Swatsley.
