Fort Dearborn, built in 1803, had three cannons, scores of muskets, and as many as 96 American soldiers, who lived behind 14-foot walls of rough-hewn logs. These inner walls, which were topped with iron “crow’s-feet,” were surrounded by a lower second fence made of saplings, and the no-man’s-land between the walls could be swept by gunfire from two blockhouses at opposite corners of the fort. The blockhouses could also fire beyond the outer walls should an Indian or British enemy rashly approach.
In that era, when freight moved best by water, the Chicago portage was the hike between the Chicago River and the Des Plaines River–which is to say between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watersheds. Visionaries could see that if a canal were dug, the Chicago portage could link the Atlantic Ocean with New Orleans. The portage was crucial to the fur trade and to the eventual settlement of what whites considered the wilderness.
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The Indians recognized the value of the Chicago portage. But to them the land was not empty and wild; it was the fruitful world they intended to pass on to their children. Yet they’d enthusiastically joined in the fur trade since the 17th century, even though as animal numbers declined the trade drew white men farther and farther into the interior. The merchandise, guns included, that the Indians could acquire by trading furs was irresistible.
The soldiers built Fort Dearborn directly across the river from DuSable’s big house. Security was very much on the mind of Captain John Whistler and his men, for only eight years had passed since the end of the long and bloody Indian wars that followed the American Revolution. Yet the soldiers were far from being harassed when they arrived and began to unload their ship. Two thousand Indians came to watch. They called the sailing ship a “big canoe with wings.”
In this relatively placid atmosphere at least one soldier and perhaps many more used to run for exercise far out on the prairie. The Indians, according to an account of life in early Chicago by Kinzie’s daughter-in-law, Juliette Kinzie, were known for an “Indian trot” in which they ran for miles. The Indians were allowed a small permanent camp about 1,000 yards southwest of the fort, and no doubt each contingent watched the other’s runners. Word spread of a swift young soldier and a swift young Potawatomi. An idea developed.
The path of the race is unknown. Billy Whistler and the young chief could have run out 2.5 miles along one of the main trails, probably straight south, and then come back. If they’d done that, most of the race would have been out of everyone’s sight. Or they could have run round and round the fort, as Achilles and Hector ran round and round that other place long ago. But it’s not likely Captain Whistler would have allowed Indian spectators to surround the fort.
The toll of Americans who were killed in the Fort Dearborn Massacre, or later died or were killed in captivity, reached 61. Sources disagree, but as few as 2 or as many as 15 Indians were killed in the battle.
