Encyclopedia o f Chicago
MAPS : MAPS CREATED BY ENCYCLOPEDIA STAFF
MAPS : MAPS CREATED BY ENCYCLOPEDIA STAFF
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Chicago's Place in the Water Routes of the Great Lakes Indian World, 1600-1830

Chicago's Place in the Water Routes of the Great Lakes Indian World, 1600-1830
For centuries the Chicago area represented for Native Americans just one of a number of key portages for long-distance canoe travel between the Great Lakes and the river network of the Mississippi Basin. These routes were vital for seasonal migrations and periodic trade between populations bordering the Great Lakes and the middle Mississippi Valley. These corridors of interregional movement proved essential to the successful development of the fur trade following contact with Europeans, a trade that flourished in the Chicago area until the opening decades of the nineteenth century.