In commemoration of Native American Heritage Month, visit Chicago History Museum for activities celebrating Native histories and the Indigenous peoples who continue to thrive in the city. Learn about the ongoing work Native American organizations and individuals do in Chicago and how they use the arts as a tool to share their cultures and to promote social change.

For thousands of years, the place now known as Chicago was a thriving center of Indigenous life. Potawatomi people lived on and took care of the land until they were forced out by non-Native settlers. The Ojibwe, Odawa, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Miami, Mascouten, Sac and Fox, Kickapoo, Ho-Chunk, Menomonee, and tribes whose names have been lost due to genocide also lived, gathered, and traded in this region. Chicago today still owes much to the Indigenous peoples of this land. In fact, the city’s name comes from “Checagou,” likely derived by French traders from the word “Zhegagoynak.” In Potawatomi, “zhegagosh” means “wild onion” and “nak” means “the place of.