Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable bust adorned with crown for start of Black History Month
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A bust honoring Chicago's founder got royal treatment for the start of Black History Month on Wednesday.
Members of the Black Heroes Matter Coalition added a crown to the bust of Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable – the man considered to be the first settler to the city.
"There is no way Black History Month should be celebrated in Chicago without first recognizing its Founding Father," Black Heroes Matter Coalition President Dr. Ephraim M. Martin was quoted in a news release.
DuSable was born in Haiti around 1745, and as a young man found himself shipwrecked in New Orleans, according to the Field Museum of Natural History. DuSable worked his way north – forming relationships with Indigenous communities in the Great Lakes area – and arrived in what would become Chicago in 1778, according to a museum blog piece.
DuSable married a Potawatomi woman named Kitihawa, and they settled on the north bank of the Chicago River at Lake Michigan, the museum said.
"Though DuSable wasn't the first trader to pass through the area, he was the first non-Native person to stay and establish a permanent post," Field Museum public relations director Bridgette Russell wrote in the 2022 blog piece. "His estate would eventually consist of a modest-sized home, a horse mill, a bake house, a dairy, a smokehouse, a poultry house, a workshop, a stable, and a barn."
The bronze bust of DuSable at Michigan Avenue and the Chicago River was created by artist Erik Blome in 2009. The statue sits over the city bridge over Michigan Avenue that is also named over DuSable.