The original founder of the city of Chicago, Illinois (established in 1837) was a black Catholic trader and trapper named John Baptiste duSable. His origins are unknown, but he was the first official settler at the south end of a great lake that would later be known as Lake Michigan. (He eventually sold his property and died in Southern Illinois). The first black Catholic priest who was ordained and identified as being black was AUGUSTUS TOLTON. Born in 1854 of slave parents who moved from slave Missouri into free Illinois, he was ordained in 1886 in Rome because no American seminary would accept him. Later he became pastor of St. Monica's Church in Chicago (now St. Elizabeth Church). Fr Tolton faced great racial conflicts in his priestly ministry (almost having a nervous breakdown), and died in 1897, suffering from very bad health.
Holy angels Church, An African American Catholic Church.
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It may
surprise you to learn that the first blacks in the United States were BLACK CATHOLICS. In
the first city established here (St. Augustine, Florida), there was a large percentage of
Spanish speaking black Catholic families. Some of these were free blacks, and some were
slave. In 1781, the "City of the Angels" (Los Angeles) was founded with only 11
families. Of these 11, all were Catholic, over ½ were black, and there were only 2 whites
in the entire group! In 1789, the famous Catholic bishop John Carroll wrote that "Of
15,000 Catholics in Maryland, 3000 are black Catholic slaves". 
