Beginnings

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable and his Indian wife settled at the mouth of a sluggish river along an important Great Lakes trade route in 1779. Du Sable -- an educated, French-speaking Catholic -- was a free Black from the island of Domingo.

The du Sable home was near Lake Michigan. Around it lay a washboard of low sand ridges and damp swales -- sand ridge -- swale -- ridge -- swale -- ridge. The water table was just beneath the surface and the ground was always damp. The land turned into wet prairie and sedge meadow beyond the area near the Lake. Yet farther out wet prairie became savanna -- widely spaced trees and sun-loving plants. And beyond that beyond -- the ocean of tallgrass prairie.

A small body of soldiers followed the Sac Trail around the southern tip of Lake Michigan in 1803. They built and garrisoned Fort Dearborn near the du Sable trading post to counter British influence in the region. A few people settled in the shadow of the fort.

The fort was evacuated at the start of the War of 1812 because the Indians were pro-British. On the march, a band of Indians -- mostly Potawatomi -- attacked, killed some of the soldiers and settlers, and took others captive.

The Americans rebuilt and garrisoned the fort in 1816. The Potawatomi, Fox, Sac, Illini and Kickapoo were driven away from their surrounding lands by force and treaty by threat of force.

The settlement prospered. Illinois became a state in 1818. The growing settlement was incorporated as a town of several hundred people in 1833. Its name derived from the Native American word, "Checagou" -- "land of the wild onion" -- Chicago was born on sodden sand and wet prairie.

The land

This morning Linda, Rocky and I headed north from Central Illinois to visit family in the Chicago area. During much of the trip along Interstate 55, the land was fields of bean and corn -- plowed under or stubble during the winter season. Corn, a domesticated tall grass, had replaced the tallgrass prairie. The Indian and bison were gone.

The Illinois state motto is "the Prairie State." Less than 1/100,000 of the presettlement prairie remains. It is measured in small parcels of acres rather than oceans.

Black Hawk led the Fox, Sac and allies here to preserve their lands and culture in the last Indian battles east of the Mississippi against the invading settlers.

But history belongs to the plow, the hunting rifle and the European immigrant.

The land changed as we neared Joliet. Isolated stands of trees marked the boundaries of the savanna. But most the land was occupied by factories, warehouses, housing developments and strip malls as we continued along the highway.

A few low, marshy areas along the road demarcated the far limit of the wet prairie region. As we neared Chicago, all became asphalt, concrete, steel, glass. All trace of wetlands, of sand ridge and swale had long since disappeared.

The city

We has a happy Christmas season visit with the older children and grand children at one home. Later, a joyous visit with my parents whom I haven't seen in many months in their home.

They live in a condo along Lake Michigan on the thirty-fifth floor. From their windows I could see the Lake. I saw the mouth of the Chicago River where once du Sable's trading post and Fort Dearborn were located. I could see the tall towers and vast expanse of the city.

I lived in Chicago for about thirty years before moving to the country ten years ago. As we drove through the city, I was assaulted by noisy traffic, bright lights, so many people, such huge buildings. I recalled finding wild onion in a remnant natural area in the far southeast corner of Chicago.

The return

We travelled home to LeRoy.

I knew too much history and natural history. My eyes had been two hundred years old. The empty landscape was a hole in my heart.

From Central Illinois to Chicago, from sea to shining sea -- too little land, too many people.