Chicago, the Gateway to the River of DeSotoo

Although nearly ten years ago I argued the urban legend origin of the word Chicago was wrong, I had no explanation to replace it.

Capturing my long term attention were 17th century maps, associated period texts, and what later historians had to say on this early French colonial period.

Chicago was named by the French explorer LaSalle. The location was thought to be a gateway to the Chucagua, a great river of legend draining into the Gulf of Mexico, the river of the Spanish Conquistador, Hernando DeSoto.

Anne Hopkins, Shooting the Rapids, 1879

Earliest Chicago on a map (rollover)

Franquelin map 1684

DeSoto's River at the Gulf of Mexico

Fig. 3. Detail, Sanson-Jaillot, 1673-74 gives Spanish spelling Chucagua for DeSoto's river emptying into the Bay of the Holy Spirit at the Gulf of Mexico

Fig. 4. Detail, LaSalle-Minet, 1685 gives French spelling, Choucagoua for DeSoto's river emptying into the Bay of the Holy Spirit at the Gulf of Mexico

Original Louisiana (rollover)
Claimed for the European dominion by LaSalle on April 9, 1682, it was one of the explorer's most noteable achievements.

Fig. 2 LaSalle-Franquelin, 1684, new colony of Louisiana, ushered into European dominion by LaSalle two years earlier. Rollover schematic by Carl J. Weber.

The earliest known use of French Checagou, is from a letter by LaSalle, 1680:

"...au fond du lac des Islinois, où la navigation finit au lieu mesme nommé Checagou" (...at the bottom of Lake Michigan, where the navigation ends at a place called Checagou.)

The English word Chicago is traceable through LaSalle's 1680 French spellings Checagou or Chekagou.

These spellings represent a French spoken pronunciation of Spanish Chucagua.

The French spelled the Spanish Chucagua in two ways:

Choucagoua, an attempt in spelling to reproduce the Spaniard's pronunciation of DeSoto's river

Checagou, a re-spelling from French pronunciation of the Spanish Chucagua .

In Paris, in 1670 and again in 1673, editions of DeSoto were published. Survivors recount rafting down the Chucagua River in 1543 and entering the Gulf of Mexico.

LaSalle was looking for this river. Known in legend, Chucagua became depicted on some maps as discharging into the Bay of the Holy Spirit (Bahia del Espiritu Santo), the later appearing on maps as early as 1519.

email Nov/Dec 2008 from Marc Van Oostendorp

Schwa and the search for the river of DeSoto

Email Between Marc Van Oostendorp and Carl J. Weber

Carl to Marc, November 27, at 12:52pm

I'd like to pose a question about how the schwa might solve a Spanish-to-French place name problem on late 17th century maps.

Marc to Carl, November 27 at 1:02pm

I'd be happy to hear about the problem!

Carl to Marc November 27 at 2:40pm

In the late 1600s the French were exploring by water route the heartland of North America.

In 1670, Paris, there was published a French translation of Garcilaso de la Vega’s Spanish account of the Hernando DeSoto exploration of parts of the continent in (1539-43), entering via the Gulf of Mexico.

Before 1682, the he lower reaches of the Mississippi had not yet been explored and charted

One body of opinion was persuaded that the Mississippi River was the river of DeSoto. This river was publicized in Richelet’s 1670 French orthography as <choucagoua>, to translate the Spanish <chucagua> as it appeared in de la Vega’s 1605 narrative.

However, in informal spoken French, might the phonemes and stress be re-cast as <checagou>?

When Lachine, near Montreal, was named in the late 1660s, it was named in the belief that it might be the route to China. When the Chicago-word first appeared in a text and on a map it was believed that it was an approach to the river of Desoto.

Could the schwa in the first and last vowel of Spanish <chucagua>, through Spanish to French spoken modification, produce the French spelling <checagou>?

Marc to Carl December 5 at 1:36pm

I am afraid I am not sure I would claim all the expertise necessary to answer your question with full confidence. In particular, it would be interesting to know which kinds of French and Spanish dialects were involved in this.

However, I can say this. Your question involves both the first and the last vowel of chucagua > checagou.

As to the first vowel, a present-day speaker of French (and presumably also a speaker of many French varieties at the time) would pronounce the first vowel of chucagoua as a so-called lax mid rounded front vowel (if you excuse the technical terminology). This vowel sounds very similar to schwa, so it would not be strange if one would be replaced by the other.

As for the second vowel, the Spanish pronunciation probably had stress on 'ou'. Since in French stress is invariably on the last full vowel of the word, it would not be strange if French speakers deleted the final vowel or replaced it by schwa.