Chicago and the Old Northwest, 1673-1835 A study of the evolution of the northwestern frontier, together with a history of Fort Dearborn

The story of Chicago properly begins with an account of the city's natural surroundings. For while her citizens have striven worthily, during the three-quarters of a century tha...

It seems quite probable that Chicago was an important meeting-place for Indian travelers long before the first white men came to the foot of Lake Michigan. The portage of the In...

With the dawn of the eighteenth century the character of the annals of Chicago undergoes a radical change. The period which had just closed had been marked by great activity on...

The years from 1754 to 1760 witnessed the overthrow of the power of France in the new world. For the fourth time in two generations England and France had joined in deadly comba...

Long before the issue of the military struggle a contest of another sort for the possession of the Northwest had begun. France and Spain had entered into the conflict between Gr...

The strategic value of Chicago as a center of control for the region between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi had been recognized long before our government took the step of...

The privations and loneliness of life at the new post on the Chicago River in the years following 1803 can be imagined by most readers only with difficulty. Only those who have...

Meanwhile time and the fates were weaving a fatal web about the almost defenseless frontier. The western Indians, awed into submission for a time by the masterful hand of Wayne,...

The indecisive outcome of the battle of Tippecanoe seemed to necessitate the continuation of the war which Harrison's campaign had precipitated. But Tecumseh's plans were not ye...

On the issue of Hull's campaign hung the fate of Fort Dearborn. With the Indian, war was a passion, at once his greatest pleasure and his chief business in life. He could not re...

Twenty-nine soldiers, seven women, and six children remained alive at the close of the battle among the sand dunes to face the horrors of captivity among the Indians. These figu...

The British negotiators of the Treaty of Ghent which brought the War of 1812 to a close made strenuous efforts to compel the renunciation by the United States of its sovereignty...

To omit from the history of early Chicago an account of the Indian trade would be like giving the play of Hamlet with the principal character left out. Its origin is coeval with...

Almost a dozen years had passed since the coming of Captain Bradley's troops to Chicago to plant again the banner of civilization on the spot where savagery had triumphed in 181...

The Treaty of Paris of 1783 which closed the Revolutionary War gave the new nation whose birth it marked the Mississippi River for its western boundary, and a line through the m...