By Suzanne Hanney
Chicago, Illinois is located on the ancestral lands of several Native American tribes: the Council of the Three Fires – comprised of the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi Nations – as well as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, Fox, Kickapoo and Illinois Nations.
These tribes had thriving trade networks in the Great Lakes area prior to European contact, says Tara Kenjockety, an enrolled member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin with ancestry also in the Seneca Nation. Some roadways in Chicago reflect the trade routes these tribes followed.
Native Americans also travelled and traded extensively via waterways such as the Chicago River, which leads to the Illinois River and then the Mississippi River. The Chicago River also flows into Lake Michigan and is thus connected to the rest of the Great Lakes.
This article first appeared in Street Spirit, a magazine sold on the streets of Chicago, Illinois, US, by people who have limited other ways of earning an income.