Carl J. Weber Etymology of Chicago 1

Etymology of Chicago And the River of De Soto

The etymology of the name Chicago has been the subject of considerable dispute, with suggested possibilities ranging from the regional Algonquian dialects for "wild onion place” to Ojibwa for "something great." More recent research has shown that it derives 1

from a river named Chucagua, going back to the Ferdinand De Soto expedition of 1539-43.

When the French were exploring the continental waterways, in the 1670s, a map was published (in 1674) showing the Chucagua River (fig. 1). 2

The middle latitudes of the Mississippi, the region west of the Great Lakes, had become known to the French by the early 1670s, but its discharge, unverified, was still a mystery (fig. 2). Before La Salle descended the Mississippi to its

discharge, in 1682, for a few years it was believed the Mississippi would lead to De Soto’s Chucagua River.

The Chicago region, as the continental watershed, was named as the embarkation gateway to reach De Soto’s river.

This river was alluded to in an account of De Soto’s expedition written in 1609 by Garcilaso de La Vega. La Vega writes:

It was near a large river, which because it was the greatest of all those that our Spaniards saw in La Florida, they called it the Rio Grande, without giving it any other name. Juan Coles says in his Relation that in the Indian language this river was called Chucagua, and below we shall describe its grandeur at more length, for it was a wonderful thing.3

Virgil J. Vogel,"The Mystery of Chicago's Name,” Mid-West 40 (1958): 169.1

Nicolas Sanson, Hubert Jaillot. Amerique Septentrionale. Paris: 1674. http://carljweber.com/images/2

1674SansonJaillot.jpg.

Lawrence A. Clayton, ed. The De Soto Chronicles: The Expedition of Hernando De Soto to North 3

America in 1539–1543 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993), 2: 385.

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Figure 1. Detail of the 1674 Sanson-Jaillot map, showing the River of De Soto, the Chucagua, believed by La Salle and others to be the discharge of the Mississippi.

Figure 2. Map by Louis Hennepin shows the incomplete knowledge of the course of the Mississippi in the 1670s.

Carl J. Weber Etymology of Chicago 2

Pierre Richelet translated the La Vega narrative from Spanish into French in 1670. The developing interest that the 4

French had in the De Soto expedition in La Florida was directly related to their 5

continuing exploration in North America. That interest resulted in the Richelet translation being published in six editions from 1670 to 1735. 6

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was the first to use the "Chicago" word, utilizing the invariable spelling “Checagou." In 1679–83, he used it for a location, a river, a portage, and a place name on a map.

Earliest History of the Chicago Word in the Chicago Region The earliest uses of the Chicago word were all by La Salle:

• As a Name of a Location: …au fond du lac des Islinois, oû la navigation finit au lieu mesme nommées Checagou [1679-80]. (…at the bottom of Lake Michigan, 7

where the navigation ends at the place called Checagou.)• As a Name of a Portage: …le 6e Janvier, les neiges m'ayant arreste quelques jours au portage de

Checagou. (…on January 6th [1682], the snow held me up a few days at the Checagou portage.)8

• As a Name of a River: …pourroit surmonter le grand débordement que les courants causent dans Checagou, au printemps, beaucoup plus rude que ceux du Rhône. (…able to overcome the great 9

overflowing that the currents cause in Checagou [Des Plaines], in the spring, much rougher than those of the Rhône.)

Pierre Richelet, Histoire de la Floride, ou, Relation de ce qui s'est passé au voyage de Ferdinand de 4

Soto, pour la conqueste de ce pays / composée en espagnol par l'Inca Garcilasso de La Vega; et traduite en françois par P. Richelet (Paris: 1670).

In the 16th Century, La Florida was a Spanish Colony that spanned much of the Gulf coast.5

Raquel Chang-Rodríguez, Beyond Books and Borders, Garcilaso de La Vega and La Florida del Inca 6

(Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2006),169.

Pierre Margry, Découvertes et établissements des français dans l'ouest et dans le sud de l'Amérique 7

Septentrionale (Paris: Jouaust, 1876–86), 2:82.

Margry, Découvertes, 2:166.8

Margry, Découvertes, 2:167-68.9

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Figure 3. 1683 La Salle detail, Carte de La Louisiane. Shows earliest use of Chicago (Checagou) word on a map (terminal u is

Figure 4. La Salle petitioning King Louis XIV in 1678, requesting to explore the Mississippi River.

Carl J. Weber Etymology of Chicago 3

• As a Place Name on a Map: Carte de la Louisiane shows the word Checagou at the southwest of Lake Michigan (lac des Ilinois)(fig. 3).10

Clara A. Smith, as found in the Ayer Collection at the Newberry Library, in 1927 indexed the map from which this detail is taken (fig. 3), as it turns out, incorrectly as Carte de la Lousiane, Minet, 1685. It should now be 1683 La Salle. 11

Smith notes, "The map as a whole is based on the [Jean Baptiste Louis] Franquelin map of 1684.” She is not correct. The map is more accurately referenced as La Salle, Carte de la Louisiane, 1683. The Franquelin map is based on La Salle’s information of his discoveries, rather than the reverse. La Salle is valorized in the cartouche.

The 1684 Franquelin map of North America, a huge six-by-four-foot 12

map, was, as historian Francis Parkman said, a “great map, the most remarkable of all the early maps of the interior of North America.” 13

Prepared for the eyes of the King, it's purpose was to show the King La Salle's success in meeting the terms of his royal commission of 1678 (fig. 4). 14

The original map, made for the King to show him his new colony, La Louisiane—forged from uncharted territories by La Salle—went missing from its French archive in the late 19th Century. This was the first official state map with the Chicago word on it. Francis Parkman had made a reproduction of it, before it disappeared, and deposited it in the Harvard University map collection archive, where it still exists, but much faded. The image of this map, found in current use, was published in Jesuit Relations in 1900. Much reduced in size, it was based on the Harvard version.

The Franquelin map shows La Salle's voyages and discoveries over the years 1679–82. These are the years of the Chicago word's first appearance in history with reference to its current location.

Robert de La Salle, Minet. La Louisiane. 1683. http://earliestchicagomaps.com/images/imagesECM-10

Small/1683LaSalle-MinetLarge.jpg.

Clara A Smith, Edward E. Ayer Collection (Chicago: Newberry Library, 1927), 23. https://11

babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015034761356&view=1up&seq=33

Jean Louis Baptiste Franquelin. Carte de La Louisiane. Paris. 1684. http://earliestchicagomaps.com/12

images/imagesECM-Small/1684Franquelin.jpg.

Francis Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World (New York: Literary Classics of the United 13

States, 1983), 1048.

Parkman, Pioneers, 803–04. 14

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Figure 6. Cartouche from 1684 Franquelin map, showing fulfillment of La Salle’s 1678 commission.

Figure 5. La Salle’s Griffin, the first decked vessel to sail the Great Lakes.

Carl J. Weber Etymology of Chicago 4

The translated cartouche on the 1684 Franquelin map (fig. 6), explicitly says it was based on the voyages and discoveries of La Salle:

Map of Louisiana, or the voyages of Sieur de La Salle and of the countries that he discovered from New France to the Gulf of Mexico, the years 1679, 80, 81 & 82. By Jean Baptiste Louis Franquelin, the year 1684, Paris.

The Franquelin map and the incorrectly named Minet map are both dependent on La Salle's explorations.

Minet said he made the map, as Parkman paraphrases him, "on his voyage homeward.” Minet had been with La Salle at his Texas Gulf coast colony before sailing home, during which journey he made the map. 15

Linguistic Analysis Linguist Marc Van Oostendorp provides an analysis of how De Soto's Spanish spelling, Chucagua, is rendered into La Salle's French Checagou—that is to say, how chu- becomes che- and how -agua (-agoua) becomes -agou. Oostendorp says:

Re: Schwa and the search for the River of De Soto. I can say this. Your question involves both the first and the last vowel of chucagua checagou. As to the first vowel, a present-day speaker of French (and presumably also a speaker of many French varieties at the time) would pronounce the first vowel of chucagoua as a so-called lax mid rounded front vowel (if you excuse the technical terminology). This vowel sounds very similar to schwa, so it would not be strange if one would be replaced by the other.

As for the second vowel, the Spanish pronunciation probably had stress on 'ou'. Since in French stress is invariably on the last full vowel of the word, it would not be strange if French speakers deleted the final vowel or replaced it by schwa. 16

———The Mississippi as Drawn by La Salle. As stated above, the Mississippi was believed to lead to the River of De Soto, mentioned in the 1670 translation by Pierre Richelet of the De Soto narrative of 1609 by Garcilaso de La Vega (fig. 8). The region of modern Chicago, which La Salle named Checagou, was thought to lead to the River of De Soto, the Chucagua. 17

Parkman, Pioneers, 984.15

Marc Van Oostendorp, email message to author, 5 December, 2008.16

On analogy, Lachine had been thought in 1669 to be an embarkation gateway to a corridor to 17

eventually reach the Pacific Ocean, for sailing to the Sea of China.

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Figure 8. Title page of 1670 Pierre Richelet account of early Spanish exploration.

Figure 7. Ferdinand De Soto

Carl J. Weber Etymology of Chicago 5

As the continental watershed, the Chicago region was integral to the plan to voyage from the Great Lakes/St. Laurence to the Mississippi/Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi River is drawn on the 1683 La Salle map, and the 1684 Franquelin map. This later was the first official map of La Lousiane. It was hand drawn, not printed, it was an “eyes only” document. It delineated claims of sovereigny in the New World for the monarchs of Spain, of England, as well as, of course, of France. The creation of this map marked the fulfillment of La Salle's 1678 commission from the King.

Background History Before Use in Chicago Region As stated above, Chucagua, as the Chicago word, is earliest found in the account written by Garcilaso de La Vega of the expedition of Spanish Conquistador, Ferdinand De Soto (fig. 7). The name of the river was taken by La Vega from a De Soto expedition manuscript narrative by Juan Coles, which he, La Vega, incorporated into his own work. Undertaken during the years 1539–18

43, De Soto’s expedition traversed the southeast quadrant of North America. 19

This was the very geography of interest to the French in the 1670s. De La Vega’s De Soto narrative was translated into French by Pierre Richelet in 1670 (fig. 8). Richelet's translation led many to believe the Mississippi was the Chucagua of De Soto.

Richelet’s translation had a historic effect on cartography. French publisher Hubert Jaillot, in 1674, on his map of North America, inserted De Soto's Chucagua River as discharging into the Gulf of Mexico by way of a large bay, the Bahia del Espiritu Santo (see fig. 1). 20

This was a radical revision of the continental waterways’ discharge at the Gulf coastline of Nicolas Sanson's 1650 Amerique Septentrionale. Sanson's continental discharge configuration, 21

itself, was based on the 1625 Florida et Regiones Vicinae of De Laet. 22

La Salle began his plans to navigate the river to its discharge in the 1670s, voyaging to France in late 1677 to petition the King for permission. La Salle included Checagou in his plans, the 23

word appearing in his writing and on maps after 1679.

All the water on one side of the watershed region of Chicago flowed ultimately to the Gulf of St. Laurence, all the water on the other side flowed to the Gulf of Mexico—and there was only a short portage between them. The Chicago area (by way of the Des Plaines, Illinois, and

Chang-Rodríguez, Beyond Books, 23, 39, 128, 132n. 4, 149, 155, 156, 161.18

In May, 1542, De Soto died en route, and Luis de Moscoso Alvarado assumed the command.19

Nicolas Sanson, Hubert Jaillot. Amerique Septentrionale. 20

Nicolas Sanson. Amerique Septentrionale. Paris: 1650 http://www.carljweber.com/images/21

1650SansonLargeDull.jpg (Accessed 20 June 2019).

Johannes de Laet. Floride et Regiones Vicinae. Leiden: 1625 http://earliestchicagomaps.com/images/22

imagesECM-Small/1625deLaet.jpg .

Parkman, Pioneers, 803-04. 23

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Carl J. Weber Etymology of Chicago 6

Mississippi Rivers) was the practical connection to voyage from the Great Lakes/St. Laurence waterways to the Gulf of Mexico.

In a letter of October 1678, La Salle wrote of his plans, which included establishing a fort on the Illinois River, and from there, ”to descend the great river of the Bay of St. Esprit, to reach the Gulf of Mexico.” Establishing a fortified stronghold on the Gulf would provide a year-round 24

warm water port, and a bulwark against the Spanish and English.

Four years later, in April, 1682, when La Salle completed the navigation of the Mississippi River, he discovered it discharged into an inhospitable swamp delta, and not the welcoming bay written of in the De Soto narrative. As historian Francis Parkman described, "La Salle, deceived by Spanish maps, thought that the Mississippi discharged itself into the Bay of St. Esprit." The 25

original significance of La Salle's Checagou, as the gateway to the river of De Soto and the Gulf, was soon forgotten to history, but continued to be the spelling on most maps until the coming of the English in the mid-1700s.26

Orthography explanation of Dictionaries of Le Boulanger and Gravier (fig. 9): The character "8" symbolized a speech sound in the Indian languages that no letter in the French alphabet could approximate. The "8" is an available way to represent "omicron-upsilon," an o with a u resting on top. It is conventionally typeset "8," and is generally urged by modern scholars to be pronounced as a w (or "oo" when written for French ou). 27

Parkman, Pioneers, 806.24

Parkman, Pioneers, 806n.25

Carl J. Weber. Earliest Chicago Maps Details. “Earliest Chicago Maps.” http://26

earliestchicagomaps.com/checagouMapsDetails.pdf

For explanation of "8" from 1723, from a speaker of the Indian language, see Jesuit Relations, Vol 67, 27

143. Sébastion Rasle letter to his brother. https://archive.org/details/jesuits67jesuuoft/page/n161 .

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Figure 9. Use in French Miami-Illinois dictionaries by Le Bloulanger and Gravier of words for “garlic” as wanissisia (8anissisia) (fig. 10) and “skunk” (chicag8a) (fig 11).

Jean Baptiste Le BoulangerFrench Miami/Illinois Dictionary

Jacques GravierMiami/Illinois Dictionary

de L’ail, is French for “garlic.”

8anissi/sia -si8a are two forms of the Indian word “garlic” (read 8 as w).

chicac8o, the word for “skunk,” when used for “garlic,” is abusive.

chicag8a, Gravier’s spelling of the Indian word for the French beste puante, “skunk.”

Carl J. Weber Etymology of Chicago 7

8anissisia, anglicized, is respelled wanissisia. Note the difference in the spelling of "skunk"—Le Boulanger has chicac8o, Gravier has chicag8a (fig. 9). The letters "c" and "g" are often 28 29

interchangeable, being "voiced" and "unvoiced" counterparts of one another, and of no consequence. Neither making a difference in the meaning, Le Boulanger's Miami-Illinois "skunk" has terminal o, Gravier's has terminal a.

Folk Etymology Of the numerous folk etymologies that were compiled by Virgil J. Vogel in 1958, the most favored by historians were the two Miami-Illinois Indian words meaning "onions" and "skunk." Vogel, after elaborating dozens of etymological theories, says, "The overwhelming weight of evidence seems to indicate that Chicago was named for the onions which grew there, and that the name came from the Miamis." 30

The original source of the onion theory was Henri Joutel. He kept a continuous journal over the years of the mid-1680s of his experience in North America, much of it, at the side of La Salle (fig. 12).

In the late 1690s, France took an active interest in colonizing La Louisiane, at the Gulf. Joutel's journal became a valuable resource for information about La Salle's explorations.

When traveling through the Chicago region in 1687, Joutel was told by an anonymous informant that the area was named for the garlic that grew in the region. Joutel wrote Chicagou, and gave a physical description of the plant.

Historically noteworthy, the physical description and etymology, however, was not to appear until the unabridged edition of Joutel’s journal was published in the 1870s.

Joutel’s was the first text with the precise spelling Chicagou, as a place name. His journal was published in an abridged edition in 1713. The placename appears three times over three pages. The book was translated into English 31

in 1714. An error, however, in the English translation, rendered the place name as Chicagon. The erroneous terminal n was nevertheless parsed by various researchers as

Jean Le Boulanger, French Miami/Illinois Dictionary (Canada: 1700), 5. https://archive.org/details/28

frenchmiamiillin00lebo/page/5/mode/2up

John F. Swenson, ”Chicagoua/Chicago: The Origin, Meaning, and Etymology of a Place Name,” Illinois 29

Historical Journal 84, no 4 (1991): 238.

Vogel, “Mystery,” 173–17430

Henri Joutel, Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de La Sale fit dans le golfe de Mexique 31

(Paris: Estienne Robinot, 1713), 176, 177, 178.

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Figure 10. wanissisia (Allium tricoccum), the word for onions/garlic in Miami-Illinois

Figure 11. chicagoua, the word for skunk in Miami-Illinois

Carl J. Weber Etymology of Chicago 8

legitimate. This terminal error was corrected in the 1906 translation. 32

In the 1713 abridged edition (French), the etymology is omitted. Joutel wrote, but it was not to appear until the 1870s: Nous arrivasmes au lieu que l'on nomme Chicagou, qui, suivant ce que l'on en put apprendre, a pris ce nom de la quantité d'ail qui croist dans ce canton, dans les bois. 33

(We arrived at the place called Chicagou, which, according to what we learned, took this name from the quantity of garlic growing in this canton, in the woods.)

Joutel was misinformed by his anonymous informant. The proper name for "garlic" in the Indian language, with an orthographic adjustment, was wanissisia. The proper word for “skunk,” was chicagou(a) — among other spellings. The use of "skunk" for "garlic" is, as Le Boulanger appended in his definition, an abusive use of the skunk word (fig. 9).

As defined today, translating into English from French, "abuse": "irregular, improper, contrary to rule or usage, excessive." Moreover, in Le 34

Boulanger's time, the English definitions of "abusive," attested in the Oxford English Dictionary, were: "wrongly used, perverted, misapplied, improper."

The wanissisia at a certain time of the year has a repulsive smell. The chicagoua is well known for its repulsive smell. In that they shared the feature of repulsive smell, the word "skunk" (chicagoua) was used as a metonym for "garlic" (wanissisia), notwithstanding, an "abusive" metonymic use. “Skunk” was no more a distinct word for wanissisia than it is today for cannibas, which, owing to the the pungent smell of certain strains, is used as a metonym.

Henri Joutel, Joutel’s Journal of La Salle’s Last Voyage, 1684-87 (Albany: Joseph McDonough, 1906),32

196, 197, 198 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t05x33z6g&view=1up&seq=1

Margry, Découvertes, 3: 485.33

Denis Girard, Cassell's French Dictionary (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 5. 34

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Figure 13. Cover, Joseph Kirkland's, The Story of Chicago, 1892. The image of the plant is the Allium tricoccum, the "wild onion." Kirkland was the first to specifically allude to this plant as the one described by Henri Joutel, the plant considered by many as the source of the city's name.

Figure 12. Title page of Henri Joutel's journal, with earliest use of “chicagou” spelling.

Carl J. Weber Etymology of Chicago 9

Joseph Kirkland In his 1892 Story of Chicago (fig. 13), Joseph Kirkland was the first to use Joutel's physical description and etymology of the plant to identify Allium tricoccum as the specific plant for which Joutel wrote chicagou. Presumably, Kirkland got the etymology and botanical 35

description, not from Joutel's 1713 abridged edition (in which they were not reported), but from the unabridged journal of Joutel, which was published, 1876-86 by Pierre Margry, a few years before his own, Kirkland's, publication.

John F. Swenson Swenson has written extensively on the etymology of Chicago since 1991. He argues, as Kirkland did, that Chicagou was the Allium tricoccum, and he further argues the Indian word Henri Joutel wrote as Chicagou, was actually the Indian word “Chicagoua,” asserting the final letter a was "conventionally dropped.” In addition, on a number of earliest spellings, he used altered spellings instead of those in the primary sources.

With specific definitions, he states the following:

• "In the language of the Illinois Indians, chicagoua referred specifically to the wild garlic.”36

• "...the life giving garlic that had given chicagoua its name.” 37

• Chicagoua was the distinctive name in the Illinois language... for Allium tricoccum.”38

These statements are not correct. In Miami-Illinois, chicagoua was the distinctive name for the skunk; wanissisia was the distinctive name for the onions/garlic—as shown in the dictionary entries in the Le Boulanger and Gravier dictionaries above (fig. 9). These are similarly attested in Carl Masthay's Kaskaskia Illinois-to-French Dictionary, under the entries for "garlic" (ail), and “onions" (oignons). 39

Swenson cites Le Boulanger as his only authoritative reference. He does not comment on the definitively critical qualifier "abusive" Le Boulanger appended to “skunk.”

Swenson promotes the word of Henri Joutel’s anonymous informant as authoritative, notwithstanding it is hearsay and does not pretend to academic rigor.

Joseph Kirkland, The Story of Chicago (Chicago: Dibble, 1892), 8. https://archive.org/details/35

storyofchicago00kirkl/page/8/mode/2up

John F. Swenson, ”Chicagoua/Chicago: The Origin, Meaning, and Etymology of a Place Name,” Illinois 36

Historical Journal 84, no 4 (1991): 238

Swenson, “Choucagoua,” 243.37

Swenson, “Chicagoua,” 246.38

Carl Masthay, Kaskaskia Illinois-to-French Dictionary (Creve Coeur Missouri: Carl Masthay, 2002), 336, 39

596.

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Carl J. Weber Etymology of Chicago 10

Swenson contends, "The French, who began arriving here in 1673, were probably confused by the Indian use of this name for several rivers. They usually wrote it as Chicagou." This is not 40

correct. All documented instances of the word, before Joutel, confirm it was written as La Salle's Checagou.

Nearly all the spellings on maps into the mid-1700s show the place name of the future city as La Salle's Checagou—not as Swenson says, as "they usually wrote it, Chicagou." Swenson’s 41

Chicagoua, as a place name in the title of his paper, appears on no map. Nor is it found in use as the proper word for the garlic/onions. Jacques Gravier, whose dictionary defined Swenson's "Chicagoua" word as the word for "skunk" (figs. 10, 12), used it as “a return address” — where he was writing his letters from — in five letters he wrote, on three occasions. He did not identify the word with the onions/garlic.

How Joutel's Chicagou Spelling Became Authoritative Ten years after Joutel's journal entries of 1687–88 (with the Chi- spelling), and his return to France, his written recollections about La Salle were sought after by the French authorities. They were initiating the colonization of the Gulf coast near the Mississippi, where La Salle had been.

Among those authorities were Louis Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain (Secretary of State, Minister of the Marine) and Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville (founder of La Louisiana). In 1698 they discussed in their letters their desires to examine Joutel's journal. It contained an “exact” account of La Salle's explorations of the Mississippi and regions of the coastline. Joutel's Chicagou was 42

therefore not unknown in official circles.

French popular interest in La Salle became widespread with Louis Hennepin's publications, giving La Salle great acclaim in Description de la Louisiane (Paris, 1683) and his Nouvelle decouverte d'un tres grand pays (Utrecht, 1697).

La Salle was already well known to the French public in 1713, when Joutel published the abridged edition of his journal (of note: it contained neither the etymology nor plant description). As the "preeminent eyewitness historian of the La Salle expedition," Joutel further extolled the 43

La Salle legacy. This Joutel book was translated into English the following year as, The Historic Journal of the Last Voyage of La Salle. In the French edition it mentions "Chicagou," the location, three times on three consecutive pages. (In the English translation, it prints the erroneous Chicagon). As stated above, the etymological phrase, ”according to what we learned, [Chicagou] took this name from the... garlic,” was included in neither the French nor the English abridged editions (1713-1714) of Joutel’s Journal. Joutel’s etymology would not be published until the later 19th Century, in the Pierre Margry volumes.

John F. Swenson, "By John F. Swenson; adapted from Chicagoua/Chicago: The Origin, Meaning, and 40

Etymology of a place name, Illinois Historical Journal 84 (Winter 1991), Early Chicago. https://earlychicago.com/essays_1/ .

Weber, Earliest Chicago Maps Details. http://earliestchicagomaps.com/checagouMapsDetails.pdf 41

Margry, Découvertes, 4: 50, 65, 69, 71.42

Robert S. Weddle, “Henri Joutel,” TSHA.https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fjo77 .43

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Carl J. Weber Etymology of Chicago 11

Joutel’s spelling of the Chicago word was regarded sufficiently reliable for cartographer Guillaume Delisle (also, de l'Isle) to change the spelling of the place name of the future city (from La Salle's Checagou on his 1703 map) to Joutel's Chicagou on his 1718 Map. Delisle, highly emulated, was acclaimed as the leading cartographer of the period.

With the complete Joutel journal being published by Pierre Margry, 1876–86, for the first time, Joutel's etymology and descriptions were made available to researchers and the general public. Researchers, until Margry, had limited 44

information.

The etymological information (that the place name derived from the garlic/onion), was made available when Margry's six volumes were published. Soon thereafter, 1892, Kirkland himself published Joutel's folk etymology, identifying the plant name with Allium tricoccum, corroborated by Swenson (1991) a century later. As such, it has been part of the Chicago historical landscape.

The Coming of the English With the coming of English speakers and cartographers, the Chicago place name with the "Che-" spelling, on contemporaneous maps, was abandoned. This was subsequent to the English gaining the French possessions in North America with the 1763 Treaty of Paris. The Joutel spelling was easily reconciled with the English language. An important factor, in the change from Checagou to Chicagou, is that in English, the French pronunciation of the first vowel in Checagou (as a “rounded front vowel”) is not part of the English phoneme systems. In addition, with the tendency toward "recessive accent" in English (the accent moving toward the fronts of words), it was only a matter of time before the final "oo" sound of French ou, became neutralized from its full accented [u] value and became an unemphatic [o], spelled simply as it sounded—o.

_________________________________________________________________

Margry, Découvertes, 3: 485.44

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Figure 14. April 9, 1682, LaSalle Takes Possession of La Louisiane. Chicago, already named, became part of the European dominion.

Carl J. Weber Etymology of Chicago 12

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