War, and the subsequent westward migration of Native Americans away from the Chicago area might also have influenced his decision. Legacy and honors Founder of Chicago The French came to the North American mid-continent region in the 17thcentury. Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, during their 1673 Mississippi Valley expedition, though probably not the first Europeans to visit the area, are the first in the written record to have crossed the Chicago Portage and traveled along the Chicago River. Over the following years visits continued, and occasional intermittent posts were established, including those by René LaSalle, Henri Tonti, Pierre Liette and the four-year Mission of the Guardian Angel. Point duSable 1780s establishment is recognized as the first settlement that continued on and ultimately grew to become the city of Chicago. He is therefore widely regarded as the first permanent resident of Chicago and has been given the appellation "Founder of Chicago". Memorials By the 1850s, historians of Chicago recognized Point duSable as the city's earliest non-native permanent resident. For a long time the city did not honor him in the same manner as other pioneers. Point du Sable was generally forgotten in the 19thcentury and instead the Scots-Irish trader John Kinzie, who had bought his property, was often credited for the settlement. A plaque was erected by the city in 1913 at the corner of Kinzie and Pine Streets to commemorate the Kinzie homestead. In the planning stages of the 1933–1934 Century of Progress International Exposition, several African-American groups campaigned for Point duSable to be honored at the fair. At the time, few Chicagoans had even heard of Point duSable, and the fair's organizers presented the 1803 construction of Fort Dearborn as the city's historical beginning. The campaign was successful, and a replica of Point duSable's cabin was presented as part of the "background of the history of Chicago". In 1965 a plaza called Pioneer Court was built on the site of Point duSable's homestead as part of the construction of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of America building. The Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable Homesite was designated as a National Historic Landmark on 11May 1976, as a site deemed to have "exceptional value to the nation". Pioneer Court is located at what is now 401N.Michigan Avenue in the Michigan–Wacker Historic District. At this site in 2009 the City of Chicago and a private donor, Haitian-born, Lesly Benodin, erected a large