#176 Jolliet and Marquette: Loose Ends and Notes on Early Chicago
The History of the Americans
Jack Henneman
4.9 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
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Summary
This episode ties up the loose ends that remained at the end of the expedition of Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette in 1673. Among other things, we explore the ultimate fate of Jolliet’s optimistic vision that a canal could bridge the continental divide in Illinois, allowing sailing ships to travel from Lake Erie all the way to the Gulf. Along the way we learn all sorts of factoids, including the fate of the Carolina Parakeet, snippits from the earliest history of Chicago, including the origin of the name of that city, its first non-indigenous resident, and the resolution of Marquette’s pervasive gastrointestinal issues.
[Errata: About five minutes along I saw that Jolliet arrived at Quebec about July 29, 1673. Should have been1674. Oops.]
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Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)
Mark Walczynski, Jolliet and Marquette: A New History of the 1673 Expedition
John William Nelson, Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago’s Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent
Francis Borgia Steck, The Jolliet-Marquette Expedition, 1673 (pdf)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 176. |
| 0:11.5 | I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I am recording this episode on February 16, 2025, in Austin, Texas. |
| 0:20.7 | We are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United |
| 0:24.1 | States from the beginning without intentional presentism. Every now and then we make our requests |
| 0:31.7 | for support at the top of the episode rather than the end in the perhaps bootless hope that those of you who |
| 0:40.0 | bail before the very end will help out. In that regard, if you enjoy what you hear, |
| 0:46.4 | please give the podcast a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to |
| 0:52.5 | podcasts and consider writing a nice review. |
| 0:56.0 | I understand that both stimulate the algos to get the word out, which is very nice. |
| 1:03.6 | Also, if you're going to order something on Amazon anyway, consider doing so by clicking |
| 1:09.6 | through one of the many Amazon links on the website, |
| 1:13.0 | the history of the Americans.com. Most of the episodes have links in their show notes, |
| 1:18.9 | but the fastest way is to go to the books tab at the top and click through really any of the links |
| 1:25.0 | in that tab. I'll get a little tip at no cost to you, and that |
| 1:30.3 | helps keep me in cigars, and cigars help me pump out episodes. Before we get to today's |
| 1:38.3 | history fun, it bears reporting that I have at long last plunged into the work for King Phillips' War, |
| 1:46.0 | which some historians say was proportionately the bloodiest war in American history. |
| 1:51.5 | It also completely upended the world of the New England Puritans, the Wampanoags, |
| 1:57.4 | arrogance, and a dozen other Indian nations in the region. |
| 2:02.3 | It's a complicated story, and I want to do it justice, |
| 2:05.7 | so I have a heap of books with different perspectives that I'm lugging around. |
| 2:11.1 | It might be a minute before I can start writing. |
... |
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