From River Path to City Streets: Early French Presence in St. Joseph County
Long before South Bend took shape as a city, the land along the St. Joseph River was home to the Potawatomi and Miami peoples, who were stewards of the water, woods, and wildlife, and who utilized the vast St. Joseph River for trade and cultural connection. As America became a destination for new conquests and possibilities, European nations staked their claim on North American lands. French Jesuit missionary Father James Marquette set foot on the banks of the river in 1675, and a few years later in 1679, French explorer René-Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle arrived and met with Potawatomi Chief Onangises. They created a fur trade partnership, opening the door for permanent European settlement.
French-descended colonists, drawn by the river’s reach and fertile land, began building a town, laying streets and foundations over a place that had long been lived in. Pierre F. Navarre built his cabin along the river for fur trading in 1820, and Alexis Coquillard came down from Detroit in 1823 to lay out the plans for a city. You can still see traces of this layered history and French influence today in street names, parks, and buildings, reflecting the duality of our small pocket of the midwest.
But as with any new claim to land from outsiders, those who existed before were driven out in the name of urban expansion. Following Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830, nearly a thousand Potawatomi men, women and children were forcibly removed from Northern Indiana in 1838, where they were pushed to reservations in Kansas and Oklahoma on what is known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death.
To live in St. Joseph County is to see evidence of the past living alongside hopes for what’s ahead, and to be a mindful resident of this place is to honor the people who walked these trails long before they were paved over. In doing so, we create room for a more honest and inclusive future — one where we recognize that memory is not just something we keep, but something we build on with care.
References
History of St. Joseph County Indiana by Chas. Chapman & Co., Chicago 1880
Historic Background of South Bend and St. Joseph County in Northern Indiana compiled and published by Schuyler Colfax Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, second edition
https://www.historymuseumsb.org/the-first-settlers
https://www.historymuseumsb.org/early-history-of-indiana-to-1779
https://www.sjcindiana.gov/1638/City-of-South-Bend
