Today’s guest blogger is Dan Melone, a Chicagoland Archaeologist and Robinson Family Historian. Dan received a M.A. in Archaeology and Heritage from the University of Leicester, in England. For over 20 years, Dan has documented numerous sites within many county forest preserves in Chicago and the suburbs, on private land throughout Northern Illinois, and Southern Wisconsin. The sites include a fort located in the Palos Forest Preserves.
In 2015, Melone, along with Robinson descendent Verlyn Spreeman and historian Scott Markus, recovered the Robinson Family Cemetey’s lost and forgotten headstones and held a press release on May 5, 2016, where the stones were seen in public for the first time in sixty-eight years.
Chief Alexander Robinson’s history is long. This post highlights prominent parts of the Chief’s past. Dan’s book is in the works for those interested to learn more about this fascinating man.
Chief Alexander Robinson – Early Chicago Leader
Certain periods of Alexander Robinson’s history are vague, due to antiquarian authors, unreliable secondary historical sources, data voids, and descendant memory lapse.
Born c. 1787-1789 on Mackinac Island in Michigan, Robinson’s exact birth year is debatable. Métis recording methods differed from their European counterparts, and generally poor record keeping in the 19th and 20th centuries contributed to the confusion. His baptismal record indicates that he was baptized as a Catholic in Montreal at age seven months, on May 15, 1788, placing the birth and year November of 1787. This record also indicates that his mother died along the way to Montreal. A few years after, Alexander was supposedly adopted by Michilimackinac Governor Daniel Robinson and his wife Charlotte Ferly.
Descendants Verlyn Spreeman (Menominee) and Judy Wing’s (Potawatomi) research indicates that Alexander Robinson was his birth father’s name. Most current historians agree his father was a British Officer of Scottish descent stationed in Mackinac, where young Alexander spent most of his childhood, and his mother of Ottawa descent. This combined heritage made Robinson a Métis.
Although Catholic, Robinson practiced polygamy. Both of his wives were of Indigenous descent. In 1810, he married his first wife Sasos Cynthia Caron in Michigan. Sasos was the daughter of Chief Little Wolf Caron. This marriage produced a daughter, where the Menominee lineage begins. While still married to Sasos, Alexander married Catiche Catherine Chevalier on September 28, 1826. Though she retained a position in the household, Sasos was omitted from further writing during that period. Sasos lived to be about 62 years old and died in 1847 in Illinois.
The economy during the late 1700s and early 1800s weighed heavily on cross- cultural trading in resources such as fur, land speculation, government contracting, and later, taverns and inn keeping. Natural resources were abundant and settlement consisted of artisans and farmers accustomed to hard work and patient accumulation.
Over time, Chicago transformed economically from sporadic trade into a region of manufactured materials and agricultural commodities. Fort Dearborn’s establishment in 1803 signified a permanent foothold into what would become Chicago. It became a strategic military and trade hub due to easy access to and from Lake Michigan and the Chicago and Des Plaines Rivers.
By the early 19th century, Chicago became an interwoven tapestry of influential Métis and European settlers keeping close ties to Detroit and Mackinac, Michigan, while expanding frontier outpost communities. Other influential Métis included: Billy Caldwell, Jean Baptiste Beaubien, and Antoine Ouilmette.
During the period between 1800 and 1810, as a young teen, Robinson worked as a fur trader for Joseph Bailly out of St. Joseph, Michigan. Both men traded extensively with the Ottawa throughout central Michigan. Later, he traveled to Chicago and the nearby Calumet River area. There, he worked for John Craft who represented the Mack and Conant Company. Shortly after, Robinson settled in his new home, married Sasos and started a small family.
During the period leading up to1812, John Kinzie supplied Fort Dearborn with dry goods. Prospering from his trade, Kinzie hired Robinson, Caldwell, and other Métis to work for him. Their work, along with Chicago’s expansion, would come to a halt with the attack on Fort Dearborn on August 5, 1812. However, Robinson would play a significant role in the aftermath. During a trip lasting longer than two weeks, Robinson guided survivors of the attack via canoe to St. Joseph, Michigan,and onward to Mackinac, where he safely left them with the British. He received $100 for his service. This event helped to solidify his reputation for his ability to negotiate and as being fair and approachable. When the U.S. Army returned in 1816, Robinson and Antoine Ouilmette had already grown corn in the garden of the now ruined Fort Dearborn and sold it to the garrison for profit. Fort Dearborn was rebuilt and Chicago would continue to grow.
By the early 1820s, Robinson worked steadily as an interpreter. He negotiated between Indigenous groups and the U.S. government, and received a salary of $365.00. The second Treaty of Prairie du Chien of 1829 (the third was also signed in 1829) ceded southwestern Wisconsin and northwestern Illinois, as well as the areas around present day Evanston and Wilmette. Negotiations were handled between the Council of Three Fires (Ojibwa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi) and U.S. representatives. Prior to negotiations, Robinson and Caldwell were voted in as chiefs by the large majority to represent all of the main groups who attended the treaty, even though they were already chiefs of smaller bands within Chicago. Robinson, Caldwell, and Ouilmette, along with other notable Métis were granted land sections in the vicinity of Chicago under the provisions, as well as annual annuity payments. Robinson received 1,280 acres along the Des Plaines River that he split into five parcels for him and his children.
During the 1830s, Robinson moved from Hardscrabble to Wolf Point, and established a store and tavern. Wolf Point became the center of public life, where drinking and gambling coincided with shipping and trading. Here the Métis mingled with assorted Euro-Americans, traders and voyageurs, becoming a center of blended ethnicity, where residents of various economic backgrounds socialized.
Robinson’s dual Métis heritage came into play again in 1832. During the brief Black Hawk War, Chief Black Hawk threatened to attack Chicago by sending hundreds warriors over the Mississippi River. Black Hawk failed with his attack due to Robinson, Caldwell, Shabbona, and Chiefs Aptakisic and Waubansee, who prevented their people from joining the fight. They relocated all of their young men to a camp on the Des Plaines River where they stayed until the war was over.
Robinson viewed continued fighting against the encroaching settlers as pointless, During the Indian removal process in the mid-1830s, Robinson accompanied his people west to Mayetta, Kansas; afterward returning to Chicago. This was a hard decision for him and disappointed his people.
After being incorporated into a town in 1833, Robinson and Caldwell helped organize the first town-trustee election and build the Chicago’s first Catholic church, St. Mary’s. Robinson’s two daughters attended Catholic school in the 1850s. In 1842, Robinson moved with his family to his reservation on the Des Plaines River (near Schiller Park) where he remained as a gentleman farmer until his death in 1872.
After many years during which the location of Robinson Family’s headstones remained unknown, they were found and recovered in October 2015 by Dan Melone and Verlyn Spreeman after the Illinois State Archaeological Survey got involved with the recovery.
This photo shows several headstones along with researchers Dan Melone and Verlyn Spreenman. Left to right. Front row: Dan Melone, Verlyn Spreeman. Middle row: Judy Wing, Charlene Holtzinger, Beverly Fernandez. Back row: Ed Wing, Terry Holtzinger, Tony Fernandez. (Credit: Scott Markus)
