[Klippenstein]

Can anybody provide any reliable source to support the claim that he was undoubtedly a terrible person?

He was the son of an enslaved person, which would give him a unique perspective on the world compared to a lot of the Europeans claiming indigenous territories as their own. From what I read, he came to Chicago after gaining the trust of the native people and established a trading post where he had connections to many places in the area from his travels.

He actually seems like a decent and competent person. I really think it’s BS for everybody to decide just because of the time period he lived in that he was a murderous, greedy colonizer… I mean I can understand if you have a problem with foreigners living on this land without permission from the indigenous people, but it seems like we fit that more than he did.

I’m certainly interested if anybody has any evidence of his terrible nature, but I haven’t seen it. From what I understand there is more mystery around the reason why he sold his property at the mouth of the Chicago river and died as poor man. There are some theories that he was forced to sell it. Perhaps history would have been different if he would have been respected and hailed as a leader in his old age.