Native American Heritage Month in November celebrated the history, culture, and traditions of American Indians, as well as their contributions to contemporary society. Native Americans, American Indians, or Indigenous Americans, all appropriate terms according to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, thrived in the areas south of Chicago for thousands of years before European settlers arrived. Today, however, neither their current nor their historical presence is easy to find.
According to the 2020 U.S. Census, those who identify as Native American or Alaska Native make up about 2.7% of the country’s population. Very small populations of Native Americans were reported in southern Cook and Will counties; in fact, many locations, including Lockport, Frankfort and Worth, reported 0%.
The City of Blue Island reported 1%, or about 20 people. Three of those people are Rose Baker, her daughter and her grandson.
Born in Chicago, Baker spent part of her childhood on the Ojibwe reservation of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians in Hayward, Wisconsin. Her father, Peter Baker Sr., was a full-blooded member of the tribe, and her mother, Bernice, was of Finnish descent. When she was seven, her parents divorced, and she moved to Chicago with her mother and siblings.
Baker spent the next 30 years without contact with Native American culture, but her connection remained.
“I knew I was different from the other children in school, but I didn’t think of it as a race issue,” Baker said. “I do remember the teacher telling us to take out our flesh-colored crayons, and thinking to myself, that isn’t the color of my flesh. Where’s my color?”
Baker, who works as an accountant, started checking “Native American” on job applications and found it opened some doors. At one large corporation, she saw the demographic breakdown for the staff that noted “Native American, 1,” and realized that was her.
As adults, Baker and her sister decided to investigate and document their Native American heritage. They reconnected with their father and relatives on the reservation.
“When I was 37 with my own young daughter, I started going to powwows and retreats, and participating in ceremonies. I am glad I connected with my father and my cousins because that opened up a whole new world to me,” Baker said, “learning about the culture, like that the regalia of the tribe is not a ‘costume.'”
Rather, the traditional tribal outfits worn for ceremonies are intensely personal creations that honor ancestors, tell the individual’s story, and connect the past, present and future.
“I feel blessed to have that knowledge now,” Baker said.
She credits her cousin, Maryellen Baker, co-author of “The Healing Blanket,” a collection of stories and poetry from Ojibwe elders and teachers, for teaching her about some of the ceremonies.
“I now look into Native American traditions and customs. I tweak little things — instead of lighting candles, I light sage and tobacco when we want to lift something up to the Great Spirit,” Rose Baker said.
She’s also embraced stronger connections to nature and a greater respect for elders in learning about her heritage. For Thanksgiving, Baker honored the spirit of the day to be grateful for all she has, although she no longer buys into the myth of the Indians and Pilgrims sitting down together for a turkey feast.
Baker’s daughter has become a member of the Ojibwe band, and she hopes her grandson, 7, will follow. Even though his lineage is only one-eighth Native American, she wants him to learn about this heritage.
Noting that Black Lives Matter and other movements have raised the level of consciousness for herself and others, Baker said she talks about Native American culture “all the time now” and wishes Native American issues, such as the fate of lands historically seen as sacred, received more attention.
Centuries of development, including plowing over burial mounds to establish farms, destroyed most of the past evidence of Native American life in the areas south of Chicago. Historic documents and current research are helping to recreate a picture of the past.
In 1900, Chicago cartographer Albert F. Scharf published a map that showed the circa 1804 American Indian settlements and trails in Cook, DuPage, and Will counties. In the southern area, villages, camps and burial mounds existed from the wetlands near Lake Michigan west to the Des Plaines River.
Today, the forest preserves of northern Illinois are about the only place to find American Indian sites that were not lost to development. The Illinois State Archaeological Survey works with the Forest Preserves of Cook County to survey parts of the 70,000 acres under FPCC management.
According to Paula Porubcan, the coordinator of the ISAS Northern Illinois Field Station in Elgin, about 20% of the FPCC land has been professionally surveyed, and up to 620 archaeological sites have been recorded. The exact locations of the sites are not revealed to protect them.
“The sites date from the very first time humans entered the area, right after the glaciers retreated about 10,000 B.C., up to the present. Every type of Native American site you can think of is preserved in the forest preserves, including campsites, big villages, transportation routes, resource gathering places and burial grounds,” Porubcan said.
Historically, there was a very strong Native American presence in south Chicagoland, she said. It was a very productive area, with many resources, plants, and animals. Four or five very large villages that were used year-round and contained at least 2,000 people have been found in the southern woods.
One of the most exciting sites is a big village that was occupied right before the Europeans arrived. The site was looked at in the 1920s and 1950s, and it was presumed to be destroyed, but ISAS discovered a large part still preserved. As “a site right at the cusp before everything changes,” it is an important find, said Porubcan.
Porubcan said she is “still surprised that people are amazed to find out people were living here for a long time before the Europeans got here.”
That lack of awareness is one factor that has led to Land Acknowledgement Statements, formal proclamations from organizations that recognize and respect the Indigenous People who were traditional stewards of the land and continue to have a relationship with the land.
A statement issued by the Forest Preserves of Cook County acknowledges the Council of Three Fires — the Ojibwa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi — as well as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sauk, and Meskwaki peoples.
Even though today’s paved streets, strip malls, and housing developments give little indication, Native American peoples built their homes and raised their children here; they engaged in occupations and trade; they practiced their religion; they even had sports teams.
The Native American presence is carried on by people like Rose Baker and her family.
“I think people who don’t want to learn about other cultures are afraid that if they open themselves up, it may lessen their culture, but that does not happen. You can honor all cultures,” Baker said.
Baker is clearly happy not only that she embraced her Native American side, but that she also fits the role.
“People come up to me and say, ‘You’re Native American.’ I have the ‘look,’ and I really like that, I am proud of that,” she said.
Carol Flynn is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
