Shaubena, a chief of the Pottowatomies, was in and about Chicago long after their war dance of 1836. He had seen Pointe de Saible, but unfortunately his knowledge concerning him is not on record. Mr. Mason says regretfully:
In 1855, at the old Wells Street station, I saw old Shaubena wearing moccasins, leggins, coat and plug hat with colored strings tied around it. He was gazing with great delight at the Galena Railway engine, named for him, and calling the attention of the people on the platform to it. He doubtless thought that a much more wonderful sight than old Jean Baptiste.
SHAUBENA IN OLD AGE. (ABOUT 1856.)
One other mention of Pointe de Saible is thrown up from the almost barren shore of Western history. The third volume of the Wisconsin Historical Society's collection contains certain "Recollections" of Augustin Grignon (a grandson of Sieur Charles de Langlade), who became the first permanent white settler of Wisconsin about 1735, and, as we have seen, is named by de Peyster in his verses, among which "Recollections" occurs the following precious bit:
"At a very early period there was a negro who lived here (Chicago) named Baptiste Pointe de Saible. My brother, Perish Grignon, visited Chicago about 1794 and told me that Pointe de Saible was a large man, that he had a commission for some office, but for what particular office or for what government I cannot now recollect. He was a trader, pretty wealthy, and drank freely. I do not know what became of him."
With these bits of chance allusion—touches here and there—we get a quite distinct impression of the lonely Baptiste. His origin shows possibility of greatness, for it was the same with that of François Dominique Toussaint, surnamed l'Ouverture. Like him, he was a French West-Indian mulatto. He was large, handsome, well-educated and adventurous, traits which mark pretty clearly his migrations and his fortunes. Neither in Mobile, New Orleans, Kaskaskia, nor St. Louis could he probably feel at home, for at each of these places nigritude was associated with servitude. Among the Peoria Indians he probably found scanty elbow-room, especially if his friend and rival trader, Glamorgan, was, as his name implies, of Welsh blood—a race which gleans close, and thrives where others starve.
Not unnaturally would he, as tradition suggests, aspire to headship of the great tribe of Pottowatomies, for he knew how vastly superior he was to the best of them; and quite as naturally would he fail, seeing that the red strain of blood and the black have even less in common than has each with the white. At the same time, considering the state of domestic relations at that time and place, we may be very sure that he did not fail to "take some savage woman"—one or more—to rear his dusky race in large numbers and much rude, half-breed gaiety and contentment.
As to his office, one would like greatly to know something about it, and is prone to wish that somebody would look it up—in the general government archives, or those of the North-West Territory, which had been established in 1788, General St. Clair being its first governor, and Cincinnati (Losantiville) its capital. Why should it not have been under Harrison and Wells? It would scarcely have been an English office in view of the unpleasant allusion by de Peyster, though the English maintained emissaries hereabouts—fomenters of discontent—away on almost to the war of 1812. Still, it might be worth while to try the Canadian records. Barring swell a discovery, it seems probable that the last word has been written about him.