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Video on what treaties are and their effects.

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Warm-up:

1. As a class, come to an agreement of the definition of these key terms:

2. What do you know about the Indigenous people where you live? Go to this map and search your address to find out what Native American tribe(s) have historically called the land you are standing on home. Then, do some research to answer the following questions for one of the tribes:

Does this tribe have federal recognition?

Has the United States ever made a treaty with this tribe? If so, have its terms been upheld?

Where do members of this tribe live today?

Lesson Ideas:

1. Watch the following video. Answer the comprehension questions below while you watch.
Comprehension Questions:

What is a treaty, and who can make them?

To whom did treaties grant rights: the United States, or Native nations?

From the perspective of Indigenous nations, how many treaties have been upheld?

What is Mary Kathryn Nagle's response to people who question the relevance of treaties?

What example of the relevance of treaties in recent news does the video mention?

2. Discuss in pairs, then share with the class:

What examples of treaties can you think of between the U.S. and other countries?

What do you think would happen if the U.S. violated those treaties?

3. Listen to the following audio story. You can follow along with the transcript here.

4. As a class, discuss:

5. The video you watched mentioned Standing Rock as an example of the continued relevance of treaties and federal recognition to Indigenous people's lives today. In small groups, do some research to find an example of a tribal rights case brought before a court in the U.S. in recent years. Present your finding to the class, including the following information:

What did the Indigenous people involved in the case want?

Who won? What was the court's reasoning?

Were any treaties upheld or violated by the court's verdict?

What happened, or seems likely to happen, as a result? Who will be impacted?

Extension Activity:

Choose one of the following stories and read it in full. Write a one-page response that addresses the following questions:

What did you learn from this story that you didn't know before?

Why might stories about Indigenous communities go under-reported? What can you do to help make these stories more visible in your own life and in your community?

Story option 1. Indigenous people face challenges all over the world, and their stories often go under-reported. In a full issue of Pacific Standard devoted to Indigenous peoples' battles for land rights, safety, and good standards of living, six Magnum photographers traveled across the world to Greenland, Honduras, Tanzania, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, and the Philippines to document Indigenous struggles and resilience. Choose one story from the interactive map at the bottom of this page and read it in full.

Story option 2. Explore Daniella Zalcman's double-exposure portraits of residential school survivors in Canada and read the associated article.

Story option 3. Scroll through the photos, read, and listen to this interactive multimedia story on Indigenous people in the Amazon guarding the rainforest.

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Narratives of Native Nations: Indigenous Communities in the News

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1. As a class, come to an agreement of the definition of these key terms: 2. What do you know about the Indigenous people where you live? Go to this map and search your address to find out what Native American tribe(s) have historically called the land you are standing on home.

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Curious City Podcast on Native Americans living in Chicago today

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Curious City Podcast on Native Americans living in Chicago today

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Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Here's the question we received from Gerard Fleming of Orland Hills:

""The area known as "Chicago" used to be an Algonquin area called Shikaakwa. My question is are there any more of the native american Chicagoans left in the city?"

In a word, yes. How many? Um ...

So this actually is a tough question to answer in a precise way because there weren't systematic and reliable counts of the Chicago area's Native American population for several decades. But before we get to that, it's worth noting what things were like when non-native settlers first came to the area.

Jean Baptiste Point DuSable is considered the first permanent resident of Chicago, a Haitian-born immigrant to Illinois. DuSable's wife, Kittahawa, or Catherine, was Potawatomie Indian, and the couple settled at the mouth of the Chicago River around 1790.

"At that point, Chicago was a lot of marshland, it had not been drained yet of the wetlands," says historian John Low. "It (had) a lot of trails going through it along the high points. If you notice the angled streets, like Milwaukee Avenue, Elston Avenue, Ridge Avenue, those are generally following Indian trails along high points."

Low says between 25 and 30 tribes might claim the Chicago area as part of their ancestral lands. The dominant tribes at that time were the Potawatomie, Ojibwa and Odawa. But there were others, too, such as the Menominee, Miami and Ho-Chunk.
So, how about that name?
An interesting sidenote on this: The word "Chicago" is believed to have come from an Algonquin word. When I was looking this up, I found that some people had been inquiring about the root of the word much earlier! The gist, according to an 1879 account by a Mr. W.H. Wells, is that "The original meaning of the word Chicago is skunk." Low says more recent scholarship debunks Wells' conclusion. He says research indicates that the name, in reference to this place, was tied more to the smell of plants in the marshy area, thought to be wild onions or leeks. "If you have a strong imagination, you could imagine that they sort of smell like a skunk," says Low.
Living legacy
But back to Gerard Fleming's question of what happened to those early Native Americans in Chicago. Between the 1790s and the 1830s, the U.S. government negotiated several treaties with the tribes in the Great Lakes region that ultimately pushed most of them west of the Mississippi River. For the most part, the plan was effective - particularly with the Treaty of Chicago in 1833. Most of the tribes ceded all that remained of their lands in Chicago and agreed to move to reservations to the west.

However, some remained. For example, Alexander Robinson, also known by the name Chee Chee Pin Quay, was able to remain on land that was granted to him by the U.S. government in return for his assistance in negotiating a treaty with the Native Americans. Robinson, a half-Scottish and half-Native American businessman, was a chief of the Potawatomie, Odawa and Ojibwe. His children and grandchildren continued to live on that land until the 1950s. He still has direct descendants that live in the Chicago area.

There may have been others who never left, but they likely kept their heads down, says Joseph Standing Bear Schranz, of the Midwest SOARRING Foundation.

"Those that could escape escaped into the background, that's where they would stay," said Schranz. "Does that make sense? If you're getting picked on, and being forced to leave all your possessions ... ."
The problem of numbers
On top of that, the U.S. Census wasn't picking up on the Native American population for several reasons. Since they weren't U.S. citizens - and they weren't paying taxes - the first six censuses (starting in 1790) excluded them. In 1860 some Native Americans started to be counted, but only if they were considered "assimilated." It wasn't until 1890 that the U.S. Census tried in earnest to document the number of Native Americans. But Schranz says they continue to be undercounted.

The 2010 Census puts about 101,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives in Illinois, and about 27,000 in the city of Chicago. According to Joe Podlasek, Executive Director of the American Indian Center in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood, the greater Chicago area has the third-largest off-reservation population of Native Americans in the country. Many of them, or their predecessors, came back starting in the 1950s, when the federal government began its Urban Indian Relocation Program. Schranz says that most of those who claim ancestral roots here are probably from lines that went away for a while and then returned in recent decades.

Another interesting note is that, while much of Chicago's Native American history seems to have been swept under the rug, there have been occasional attempts by descendants of those lines to reassert their land rights. As early as 1914, some Michigan Potawatomies sued in federal court to reclaim the strip of land between Michigan Avenue and the lakefront. They said when they signed the Treaty of 1833, they ceded the land west of Lake Michigan; however, after the Great Chicago Fire, rubble was used as landfill, extending the shoreline east to areas that the tribe had not given up. They lost their case.

In 2006, the Prairie Band Potawatomie, who live on a reservation in Kansas, purchased a farm about 70 miles west of Chicago, in Shabbona, Illinois. They claim that is part of their ancestral lands. And just a couple of years ago, descendants of Alexander Robinson, a part-Odawa, part-Scottish businessman who was chief of the Potawatomie, Odawa and Ojibwa, began speaking publicly about their claim to parts of the Cook County Forest Preserve. The land had been granted to Robinson by federal treaty in the 1820s, and it could not be conveyed to any new owner without the signature of the President of the United States. Some of his descendants claim that the land was taken without such authorization.

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Do descendants of native tribes live in Chicago?

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Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer Here's the question we received from Gerard Fleming of Orland Hills: ""The area known as "Chicago" used to be an Algonquin area called Shikaakwa. My question is are there any more of the native american Chicagoans left in the city?" In a word, yes.

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Primary document of attempt to trick Potawatomi into signing Treaty of Chicago

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Primary document of attempt to trick Potawatomi into signing Treaty of Chicago

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http://digcoll.newberry.org/#/item/nby_eeayer-20802

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Article about the history of displacement and the AIC and populations living here today

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Article about the history of displacement and the AIC and populations living here today

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Native America is available to stream by Passport members.

Traces are all around, but it is often obscured or even forgotten that Chicago is built on land that was home to various Native American tribes for hundreds of years. Local members of the Miami tribe demonstrated the value of the swampy area to Europeans when they showed the French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet a portage between the Chicago River and Illinois and Des Plaines Rivers. The city's name comes from the Algonquian people, who called the river on which it sits "Checagou" after the stinky wild leeks that grew along its shore. One of the first permanent settlers of the area was a Potawatomi woman named Kittahawa, who ensured the trading success of her husband, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, by acting as a liaison and translator to her fellow Native Americans. Métis, the mixed-race children of Native American and European parents, helped the spot flourish as a hub of interactions between European traders and Native American trappers. Native American trails became integral roads for settlers as the city grew: Ridge Avenue, Ogden Avenue, Vincennes Avenue, parts of Grand Avenue.

(Learn more about the history of Native Americans in Chicago and the origins of place names and street paths in this "Ask Geoffrey" segment from Chicago Tonight.)

And then Native Americans were almost entirely removed from the region through bloody conflicts and unfair treaties that ceded their land to Europeans. As a result of the Black Hawk War of 1832 and the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, most remaining Native Americans were forced out of the area around Chicago.

"For time immemorial, tribes from across the country congregated here in the Chicago area; it was a central trade hub," says Heather Miller, the executive director of the American Indian Center in Chicago and a member of the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma. "Oftentimes we forget about that important history, and it's so often overlooked from the history of Chicago."

After the removal of Native Americans from the region, Chicago did not have a significant Native presence for over a hundred years. But in the 1950s, the federal government enacted a new policy to address what it saw as the Indian problem - one in a long line of disastrous and discriminatory policies that have removed Native Americans from their land, led to high rates of poverty, and otherwise disadvantaged and disenfranchised them. The Indian Relocation Act of 1956 sought to disperse Native Americans into cities from their reservations by ending federal recognition of many tribes and discontinuing federal funding for many of the reservations' services, such as schools and hospitals. While the government paid to relocate Native Americans and provided some vocational training, many Native Americans struggled to find work and adapt to an urban lifestyle upon arriving in cities. And that's why the American Indian Center was founded: to provide both social services and a gathering place for people faced with a drastic and overwhelming life change.

"With relocation, Native folks on reservations were given a bus ticket and told, 'Here are a list of cities you can go to - they'll have a lot of opportunities for you,' " Miller explains. "Natives start arriving in these cities and find that there isn't this breadth of opportunity that was promised them. They start coming to brand-new places that they have no experience with. They don't necessarily speak English very well, they've never seen these big buildings before, some don't even know how electricity works.

"Chicago was one of those relocation cities, so quite a few Native folks from all across the country ended up here. Our older folks came together and said, 'We need our own place, we need a gathering spot for connecting Natives who are coming to the city. We can provide them with resources, with education, and just be a place where everyone can come and hang out. So the Indian Center was born."

Chicago today has the third-largest urban Indian population in the United States, with more than 65,000 Native Americans in the greater metropolitan area and some 175 different tribes represented. The American Indian Center, founded in 1953, is the oldest urban Indian center in the country. For decades, it was located in a former Masonic lodge on Wilson Avenue in Uptown, near where many Native Americans settled when they first came to Chicago. ("Uptown had the nickname 'Hillbilly Heaven and Redskin Row,' because this particular area of it was populated by poor white people and Indians," Miller says.) Last year the AIC sold that building and moved to a new location in Albany Park, close to the intersection of Kimball and Lawrence Avenues.

While the AIC originally offered social services in addition to cultural and educational programming, in recent years it has scaled back that aspect of its mission, Miller says. "There have now been a couple generations of Native folk here in Chicago. They've established themselves and they've stepped away from needing a lot of that social service aspect. But we still need a place to gather and to practice our traditions and our heritage."

Because the AIC supports so many different tribes, celebrating all those traditions can be a bit tricky - but also rewarding. "Imagine having a family of 175 different people, and what that dining room table at Thanksgiving is like," Miller says, laughing. "Nobody's going to want to eat the same turkey, there are going to be 30 different potato dishes, everyone will have different opinions." So the AIC focuses its educational efforts, such as an after-school program and land-based education involving community gardens, on common themes instead of specific tribal traditions.

"Something that is very true to many of our communities is how we take care of and interact with the land and with plants and animals," Miller explains. "We have plants - like sweetgrass, sage, tobacco, and cedar - that pretty much all of us use for ceremonies, for medicine, and for different ways of being Native." The AIC has small garden plots in which they grow some of those plants, and they recently acquired a city lot at Pulaski Road and Wilson Avenue to provide more opportunities for community gardening and land-based education.

The AIC also organizes events that allow tribes to share their distinct traditions with each other, such as a recent social dance. "It was so cool, because we got to share these pieces of our own heritage and history and learn more about what makes each one of us unique," Miller says. There is also an annual powwow, a gathering that includes dances and competitions.

Nor has the AIC completely dropped its social service aspect. It provides support and resources to Native people who have been trafficked with its Project Beacon, through partnership with homeless shelters, domestic violence shelters, drug counselling centers, and places that provide employment opportunities, among other organizations.

This year the AIC received funding from the National Urban Indian Family Coalition for get-out-the-vote efforts in an election that saw allegations of discrimination against Native Americans in North Dakota by means of voting laws but also the election of the country's first two female Native American congresswomen. The AIC also served as a polling place and hosted a party to watch the returns from Illinois and for the record number of Native candidates across the country.

Two ongoing projects expand the AIC's educational outreach to non-Native peoples. The Field Museum recently announced that it has partnered with the AIC to renovate the Museum's Native North American Hall in order to better represent the Native peoples of the region. ( Watch Miller discuss the renovation on Chicago Tonight with the Field Museum's Anthropology Curator, Alaka Wali.) The Museum also held a land acknowledgment ceremony to recognize that it stands on the traditional homeland of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi tribes.

Farther north, for the Northwest Portage Walking Museum, which will cover an eleven-mile stretch of Irving Park Road between the Chicago River and the Des Plaines River, the AIC has partnered with the Portage Park Neighborhood Association and the Chicago Public Art Group. "We're trying to figure out ways to connect all the communities that have called that area home over the centuries, in a way that presents their history in a positive public art space," Miller says.

The two ends of the Walking Museum, at Horner Park and Schiller Woods, will be marked by two contemporary mounds designed by the Native artist Santiago x and built with the help of volunteers. "The tribes that called this area home were mound builders," Miller explains. "They used them as wayfinding tools or to honor spirits and family members. We wanted to bring that part of their history back and celebrate it." The hope is to eventually partner with other communities between the two sites to create a Walking Museum trail that connects all the communities in the area.

"The mounds will provide education to the greater community and remind folks that we're still here; the Native community hasn't gone away," Miller says. "We're still very much connected to this land and to our history, and you can come to the AIC to learn more about it. Oftentimes, it's easy to forget that Native people have a presence here in Chicago, but we're living, we're thriving, and we do really awesome stuff. We don't keep it to ourselves, and we love having people come and participate with us and learn more about us when we have events or opportunities to share our culture."

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"We're Still Here": Chicago's Native American Community

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After their removal from the region around Chicago in the early nineteenth century, Native Americans began returning to the city in the 1950s under the federal government's ill-planned relocation policy. Chicago has the oldest urban Indian center, and the third largest urban population of Native Americans.

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Describes Chicago environment before Europeans

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Describes Chicago environment before Europeans

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"The country around Chicago is the most fertile and beautiful that can be imagined. It consists of an intermixture of woods and prairies, diversified with gentle slopes, sometimes attaining the elevation of hills, and it is irrigated with a number of clear streams and rivers, which throw their waters partly into Lake Michigan and partly into the Mississippi River." Henry Schoolcraft, 1820
Jeremy Cox is looking for something Chicago is short on: nature. That's why written descriptions like Henry Schoolcraft's are one of the best ways to answer Cox's Curious City question:
What would the land Chicago is built on look like naturally, as if humans never changed it?
I spent some time with Jeremy Cox at Loyola Beach on Chicago's far North Side, enough time for us to throw out guesses while our fingers turned to ice. We had heard that the surrounding Rogers Park neighborhood had once sported stands of white birches; we'd read that the western suburbs had once been prairie; and we kind of maybe recalled that there was marshy, swampy stuff in our region, somewhere or other. And, of course, we'd both heard Chicago was named for a stinky onion. Or maybe a leek?

Anyway, here's what we could confirm from Chicago history websites and primary documents: Much of the city of Chicago proper had once been a web of marshy wetlands, dry ridges and forest groves - often interrupted by wooded areas that formed oases in an otherwise damp, rough terrain. To the west, an ocean of grasses known as tallgrass prairie stretched farther than the eye could see. And a potent wild leek - called "cheekagou" by the Illinois and Creek peoples - was abundant in local marshes.

Neither my reporting prowess nor the historical record itself is expansive enough to provide a blow-by-blow of what lay in the past of each village square, mall, parking lot and industrial zone in our region, so with Jeremy's OK, I worked with my editor to narrow the scope of what we'd find out. So, here are a few quick, before-and-after vignettes to consider. After that, we profile a place where land managers think about Jeremy's question in a very practical way: a highly-engineered prairie restoration area.
The quick hits
Jeremy gave me a lot of license, but the first show-and-tell diptych comes directly from his request to learn about the animals that once populated Chicago, but are now nowhere to be seen. (I have no comment on the presence of pre-settlement foam domes.)

(Flickr/Mark Watson, Flickr/kudzuplanet)

(WBEZ/Logan Jaffe, Flickr/Renne Rendler-Kaplan)

(James Herriot, 1828 painting of Fort Dearborn, Flickr/lalobamfw)

(Seth Eastman, 1853 painting of wild rice harvest, Wikimedia Commons/urban)
Prairie: An oh-so-scary delight "The prospect of passing through these prairies in the spring season is delightful. ... Often isolated clumps of trees stand like an island in the midst of the prairie ... The prairies are generally undulating, seldom exactly level, often slightly concave, so that in some cases, they have stagnant waters over their surface in the spring. Their soil is various but fertile. From May to October they are covered with tall grass and flower-producing weeds. In June and July, these prairies seem like an ocean of flowers, of various hues, and waving to the breezes which sweep over them." Henry S. Tanner, 1832
The drive to Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie from Chicago at no point suggests the likelihood of running into the largest tallgrass prairie preserve in the world. With the windows down, it smells stale and industrial from I-55 all the way to the entrance of Midewin, about 10 miles from the southwest tip of Joliet. The drive takes you past long blocks lined with white corrugated metal warehouses and stacked train cars. In the distance there's an oil refinery (the site, by the way, of a 2012 oil spill that left five miles of nearby roads slick with black oil), and abandoned grain elevators dot the foreground. I missed the Midewin welcome center twice because I had been expecting a little more nature, but I met environmental educator Wendy Tresouthick there because it's a great place to help answer Jeremy's question.

That's because if you look into Illinois history, one landscape dominates both maps and memoirs: tallgrass prairie. The U.S. Forest Service says only 4 percent of what was once 170 million acres of tallgrass prairie remains in the U.S., much of it in a preserve in Kansas. The website for the park calls the Flint Hills the prairie's "last stand." Today tallgrass prairies are more rare than rainforests.

And the true last stand for tallgrass prairie is actually in Chicago's backyard. Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie is the only national tallgrass prairie, and if its 20,000 acres are ever fully restored, it will be the largest tallgrass prairie in the world.

The prairie's disappearing act occurred almost overnight, starting In 1837, the same year the city of Chicago was incorporated. John Deere had patented the self-scouring steel plow, which literally cut through tightly-bound roots and freed the fertile soil for farming. The result was a furious prairie-destruction bonanza, matched in speed and intensity only by the rapid installation throughout the Chicago area of new railroads, roads and canals. These developments transformed a marshy confluence into a commercial center for the new West.

In the 1940s, the Midewin area was quickly transformed again, this time into a U.S. Army munitions plant that built bombs and shipped them around the world. Wendy Tresouthick's tour offered a glimpse of a Midewin that's in transition again: from munitions plant and back to prairie.

It wasn't until the mid-1990s that the Army gave the out-of-use tract to the National Forest Service and the concept of Midewin was born. Now about 2,500 acres are in active restoration; the rest is farmed or mostly left alone while the park's stewards wait for funding to buy seeds, clear trees and keep up with other restoration needs.

Despite the slow-moving process, Tresouthick is also closely connected with what Midewin could be. To understand the possibilities, we have to go back a few hundred years - to the time before European settlement.
Picturing the old tallgrass prairie
Midewin contains archaeological evidence that Native Americans were present there thousands of years ago; they started prairie fires to maintain grazing lands for animals they hunted, and they sometimes created agricultural settlements at the edges of the prairies.

When French explorers first arrived in the Chicago area in the 1600s, hundreds of native species created an impenetrable floor of roots and a noisy open pasture, with plants sometimes growing twice as tall as people. The Potawatomi, Illinois and Creek people helped the French figure out how to subside in such a topographically unwelcoming place.

The landscape wasn't just expansive - it could be hazardous. Rattlesnakes, bison, elk, prairie dogs, salamander, deer, lizards, wolves, bears and coyotes used to roam the prairies, savannas and forests. Black passenger pigeons, now extinct, sometimes filled the skies. The topography could shift quickly and unexpectedly from dry prairie to mucky marsh, and there were few structures that could protect you from cold. Early European settlers found the prairie sufficiently nerve wracking that, according to Tresouthick, they gathered near the groves of trees close to the rivers. That, she said, explains present-day names like Morton Grove, Elk Grove and Sugar Grove for ecologically-deprived Chicago suburbs.

But not everyone found prairie so intimidating: By the 1800s various settlers and tourists wrote of their enchantment with the landscape surrounding Chicago. To provide me an example, Tresouthick stood beneath Midewin's oldest oak tree while reading from an 1841 memoir by American writer Eliza Steele. (I used images from other Chicago-area prairies and savannas under restoration to fill in the gaps in this slideshow):
A glimpse of the past
Steele's 1840 trip was probably close to the last time anyone saw tallgrass prairie in Illinois. By the time photographic equipment arrived in our area, most of the prairie had perished; maps fill in little of the missing detail. As a result, contemporary restoration efforts depend in part upon the sometimes romanticized accounts in memoirs and travelogues; in other words, restoration is at least partly creative.

According to Tresouthick, it certainly can be be destructive. In Midewin, the land is divided by roads and chain link fences, and striped with rows of army bunkers; the restoration process will involve bringing in heavy machinery to get rid of those structures. The army also re-routed the creek, and Midewin's stewards are considering whether to engineer the flow back into the old creek bed.

I have to admit that even with an active imagination and a few tracts of prairie at Midewin as examples, it's difficult to picture the return of an overgrown wild in the middle of a semi-industrial wasteland.

But while the U.S. Army's use of the land may have completed the destruction of the old prairie ecosystem, Tresouthick points out that it also preserved something nearly impossible to find in the Chicago area today: vast amounts of space not cluttered with buildings, roads and parking lots. Today, most of that is quiet farmland or empty munitions fields. In a few generations, Midewin may have a better chance than anywhere else in the world of resembling the tallgrass prairie that once formed a formidable ocean at the edge of present-day Chicago.
"The country about Chicago, for the distance of twelve miles from the lake, is mostly a low prairie covered with grass and beautiful flowers. Southwest from the town there is not one tree to be seen; the horizon rests upon the prairie. North, on the lake, is sandy hills and barren. Between there and the north branch is a swampy, marshy place, and there is a marshy place on the south branch. The town stands on the highest part of the prairie, and in the wet part of the season the water is so deep that it is necessary to wade from the town for some miles to gain the dry prairie. Notwithstanding the water standing on the prairie and the low, marshy places, and the dead-looking river, it is considered a healthy place. It has almost a continual lake breeze, which will explain in a measure the healthiness of the place. And another reason is the cleansing of the river water by the winds driving the pure lake water into and then running out again." Colbee C. Benton, 1833

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"The country around Chicago is the most fertile and beautiful that can be imagined. It consists of an intermixture of woods and prairies, diversified with gentle slopes, sometimes attaining the elevation of hills, and it is irrigated with a number of clear streams and rivers, which throw their waters partly into Lake Michigan and partly into the Mississippi River."

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Reading from 1840 journal describing Chicago Prairie (from WBEZ link above)

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Reading from 1840 journal describing Chicago Prairie (from WBEZ link above)

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The Band hosts its own podcast, called "Yajmownen," which means "stories" in Potawatomi. In each episode, you can hear stories of citizens reconnecting with culture, reviving traditions, and reclaiming heritage. We release an episode monthly, on the first Monday of the month. Subscribe to receive notifications of new episodes.

This month's episode features citizen Jordan Brewer, whose world has recently completely changed. He started as a transfer to the University of Michigan this season, and now he's headed to professional ball. His journey here hasn't been all highs. It was filled with obstacles, but without them, he'd tell you he wouldn't be who he is or where he is today.

Hear his journey in this month's episode of Yajmownen.

You can download and subscribe to these podcasts on your phone, tablet, or computer from iTunes or Google Play. Just search "Yajmownen" or follow the links above.

Share your story with us

Do you have a story you want to share? Let us know! We want to hear what citizens are up to to share in the newsletter, on the website, and on our podcast. Please complete this form, and we will get in touch if we are able to share your story.

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The Band hosts its own podcast, called "Yajmownen," which means "stories" in Potawatomi. In each episode, you can hear stories of citizens reconnecting with culture, reviving traditions, and reclaiming heritage. We release an episode monthly, on the first Monday of the month. Subscribe to receive notifications of new episodes.

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Drawing of Potawatomi village by George Winter (European) in 1837 

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Drawing of Potawatomi village by George Winter (European) in 1837 

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This unfinished sketch depicts a Potawatomi gathering in 1837 in "Kee waw nay Village," near what would later be called, "Bruce's Lake" in norther Indiana. While no specific individuals have been identified, a water drum and a lodge pole have been pointed out, indicating the use of Midé practices.

From Wikipedia: "George Winter (June 10, 1809 - February 1, 1876) was an English-born landscape and portrait artist who immigrated to the United States in 1830 and became an American citizen in northern Indiana's Wabash River valley. Winter was one of Indiana's first professional artists. In addition, he is considered the state's most significant painter of the first half of the nineteenth century. Winter is especially noted for his sketches, watercolors, and oil portraits that provide a visual record of the Potawatomi and Miami people in northern Indiana from 1837 to the 1840s, as well as other figures drawn from his firsthand observations on the American frontier.

Winter is better known for the historic value and subject matter of his work, rather than his artistic skill and mastery of technique. Not well known outside of Indiana during his lifetime, Winter gained notice with his portrait of Frances Slocum, a Quaker who was abducted in Pennsylvania by Delaware (Lenape) warriors when she was a child and grew up to become the wife of a Miami chief in Indiana. The Slocum portrait, along with his other work, has appeared in several publications and art exhibitions. Winter's art and other materials are represented in public collections in Indiana (Haan Mansion Museum of Indiana Art), Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania." [accessed April 4, 2018]

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This unfinished sketch depicts a Potawatomi gathering in 1837 in "Kee waw nay Village," near what would later be called, "Bruce's Lake" in norther Indiana. While no specific individuals have been identified, a water drum and a lodge pole have been pointed out, indicating the use of Midé practices.

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The traditions of the Potawatomi honor the Four Directions of East, South, North and West during prayer, during ceremony and throughout the day. Each direction has unique significance.

East is the direction from which light comes, and therefore the direction of illumination. It is the direction for birth and rebirth. Rebirth can mean learning new things or gaining a new level of understanding. It is the direction of guidance and leadership. The gifts of the east include clear speech that help others understand, light, purity, truthfulness, childhood, innocence and uncritical acceptance of others.

South is the direction of the sun at its highest point. It is the place of summer, of fullness of youth, physical strength and vigor. Symbolically, it is a time of preparing for the future, of getting ready for the days ahead. The South is also a place of the heart, of generosity, of sensitivity to the feelings of others, of loyalty and love. The most difficult and valuable gift to be sought in the South is the capacity to express feelings openly and freely in a way that does not hurt others.

West teaches that its greatest lesson to be learned is to accept ourselves as we really are, as both spiritual and physical beings, and to never cut ourselves off from the spiritual part of nature. Gifts of the West include darkness, contemplation, deep inner thoughts and the unknown.

North is the place of winter and the white snow that reminds us of the white hair of our Elders. It is the place of true wisdom and survival. Survival sometimes means physical survival, that there is enough food and wood to keep us warm. It can also mean emotional and mental survival against loneliness and depression, keeping our spirit and heart strong. Gifts of the North include our Elders, insight, wisdom, moderation and justice.

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The traditions of the Potawatomi honor the Four Directions of East, South, North and West during prayer, during ceremony and throughout the day. Each direction has unique significance. East is the direction from which light comes, and therefore the direction of illumination. It is the direction for birth and rebirth.

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Most important Potawatomi gatherings, pow wows, ceremonies or festivities begin with a song. Whether it's with a rattle, a hand drum played by one singer, or a big drum-around which many men sit and sing, and women might stand and sing- the event starts off in a good way if it includes a song.

Some stories say that before the Creator made anything, the sound of the rattle accompanied the beginning of creation. Its sound was the first to fill the emptiness with its unique rhythm. The drum--which is thought of as the heartbeat of the people-is the gift to men from women. Men traditionally took life during war, while women have the gift of creating life. The drum is a way men can create a heartbeat, and that's why rarely or never will a woman sit at a drum. Many factors determine whether a singer chooses to use a rattle or a drum to accompany him or her: where the song is sung, or the type of song that's sung. The sounds of either inevitably command everyone's attention and bring together a group's focus on a commonality we all share.

Often men are called to make drums after dreams, just as sometimes a jingle dress dancer receives her call to that dance in a dream. "A lot of what happens to our people that manifests itself in the physical world might come to them in dreams," says one singer. He describes composing songs that might visit him while in a dreamlike state. Likewise, big drums are bestowed with names through dreams, or elders, spiritual leaders or the community.

Like dance, songs are a form of prayer and communication with the Creator, and singers sing their songs with vocables. One singer likens vocables to a chant. Some say the songs predate the Potawatomi language, so the vocables can be considered the first language. "Through a teacher's guidance, if you train your ear, it's almost as if you learn and understand a new language," says one singer. "The best singers are the ones that can listen really well." Other times Potawatomi words are sung with the songs. It's hoped that this will inspire others on to learn and use the native language more.

Singers start off at a high pitch, and work down low and back high again during a song. The higher ranges are calling to the Creator. Moving the range down then builds a melodic stairway for the Creator to descend and join us. The songs are repetitive; sometimes a song will be sung four times, one verse for each direction. If it's sung a fifth time, which is called a tail, it is to honor a person, an occasion or something of significance.

Special songs mark special moments. During a pow wow, the procession of veterans, head dancers and other dancers begins with a grand entry song. This song aids dancers in their role during the grand entry of telling the story of how humans first came to earth, and how the earth revolves around the sun. An intertribal song is sung for a social time inviting everyone, regardless who you are or what your heritage, to dance together. An honor song, a welcome song, a flag song and a traveling song all mark other distinct circumstances.

All aspects of traditional Potawatomi heritage are interconnected. A song, a drum, a rattle don't stand alone. Each is a spiritual tool. Like dance, the pipe and the fire: all communicate prayers and strengthen the connection to the Creator together.

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Most important Potawatomi gatherings, pow wows, ceremonies or festivities begin with a song. Whether it's with a rattle, a hand drum played by one singer, or a big drum-around which many men sit and sing, and women might stand and sing- the event starts off in a good way if it includes a song.

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Excellent Podcast and website with John Low, Pokagon Potawatomi. 

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Excellent Podcast and website with John Low, Pokagon Potawatomi. 

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Names like DuSable, Marquette, and Joliet are cited in the history books. But it was Native Americans who first set the foundation for Chicago to develop into a major Midwestern metropolis.

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Without Native Americans, Would We Have Chicago As We Know It?

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Names like DuSable, Marquette, and Joliet are cited in the history books. But it was Native Americans who first set the foundation for Chicago to develop into a major Midwestern metropolis.

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The medicine wheel guides many aspects of our lives. Each of the four sections of the wheel have a corresponding color, direction, and traditional mshkëké, or medicine. The below substances are our four sacred medicines.

Séma

As with any use of the medicine wheel, we begin in the east. Séma, or tobacco, is the medicine that corresponds with this first direction. It is a gift from the Creator, so we offer it back to him when we pray. We offer it to the roots of plants and trees and to animals we slay to eat or use for other purposes, thanking them for their gift to us. We give séma to thank others for their wisdom and help, and we place it in our own moccasins when dancing so we will perform at our best.

Gishkiy

Next, we look south and find gishkiy, or cedar. This medicine is also used for prayer. We burn it and spread the smoke around us in a ritual called smudging. We also use cedar to brew tea, drinking one glass a day for good health. Cedar is also a key element incorporated into our larger construction projects, and we hang it inside for protection and good health. We use cedar for ceremonies in sweat lodges and other places.

Pkwënézgen

In the west we see pkwënézgen, or sage. Sage is also part of our prayers, but specifically those at the end of the day. We use it to smudge and therefore cleanse areas prior to an event. All ceremonies include this medicine. Tea made from sage strengthens our hearts, and we also add it as a spice for our food, adding value to what we eat.

Wishpëmishkos

At the end of our journey, we rest in the north where wishpëmishkos, or sweet grass, grows. Sweet grass is the primary smudging medicine. We use it to smudge ourselves daily. Spreading the smoke around one's head clears the mind of negativity; across the eyes, ears and mouth helps to see, hear and speak only good things; and onto the rest of the body sends prayers for health and helps the body to work toward the benefit of our fellow Anishnaabe. We hang braided strips of sweet grass, blessed by a sage smudge, in our buildings, homes and cars for protection.

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The medicine wheel guides many aspects of our lives. Each of the four sections of the wheel have a corresponding color, direction, and traditional mshkëké, or medicine. The below substances are our four sacred medicines. As with any use of the medicine wheel, we begin in the east.

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Pokagon citizens have long sustained their culture and connection to their homeland; numerous place-names in northern Indiana and southwest Michigan continually reflect that connection. The Pokagon people have endured thanks in part to their Seven Grandfather teachings: the values of Wisdom, Love, Respect, Courage, Honesty, Humility, and Family.

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A boy, a rock and a snake

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Each year, Native American kids can enjoy a cultural summer camp experience at the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi's Rodgers Lake campus. Many of the camp activities are built around cultural teachings, and a big part of that is telling stories passed down through generations.

Colin Wesaw is a tribal elder and leader in the Pokagon Band community. He often tells stories at Camp Kë Gbéshmen in Dowagiac. The 63-year-old started telling stories when he was just 18.

He joined Stateside to talk about the importance of stories, and to share a tale about making choices.

"I tell stories that have value to them, because I believe that we don't have a lot of values today," Wesaw said. "The stories I tell are all Native American, and come from a variety of nations. But they all have value to them."

At Kë Gbéshmen, Wesaw carries on the tradition inspired by his father and elders in his community as a way to express how beautiful his Native culture is. They used to tell him to listen to the stories, and that "they're not stories, they're pathways, they're teachings."

So, as you imagine sitting around the campfire, listening to Wesaw telling the story of "The Boy and the Snake," don't just listen. Consider what value can be gained from a story passed down from generation to generation.

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Campfire Stories: a Potawatomi tale of a boy, a snake, and a choice

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Each year, Native American kids can enjoy a cultural summer camp experience at the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi's Rodgers Lake campus. Many of the camp activities are built around cultural teachings, and a big part of that is telling stories passed down through generations.

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Native dancers are drawn to dance for different reasons. Some children are encouraged to dance and be competitive pow wow dancers. Others attend pow wows as children and take an interest on their own. "I would bop up and down on my parent's lap, and so they decided to make me an outfit, and I've been dancing ever since," remembers one dancer.

Dancing in the old village days helped dictate community members' social interaction and mediation. A round dance historically introduced and integrated the clans. Jinktamek (to celebrate) was a way to celebrate the harvest times, seasonal changes, marriages and special envoys for other nations. Historically, Jinktamek would last up to four days with singing, dancing and feasting integrated with social etiquette teaching and family lineage recounting.

Contemporary native dance events like pow wows have a different feel. Old ones tell that we should dance for the people, that if you have that gift, you're good, and people enjoy watching you, you should dance for those who can't: for elders those who don't have the strength, for someone who is having a bad day, to help lift up their spirits and pray for them with dance.

Fulfilling the role of a dancer is not easy; it takes a lot of work and at times may even seem a heavy load. Creating regalia involves time, creativity and money, and feathers and regalia command a lot of care and respect. "You have to be disciplined with your outfit," says one dancer. But if dancing will help an elder who might like to see your dance, or show technique to a child who can learn from you, doing that for the community is a good thing. Answering the call to dance for the people is more relevant than ever with the emergence of contest pow wow culture where a dancer can earn thousands of dollars in a weekend.

There are several categories of dancers and dances.

Men's Traditional
These dancers preserve the old way of dancing and tell of former war or hunting expeditions. Through a combination of graceful and dramatic gestures, the traditional dancer tells his story. These men wear exquisite beadwork and feathers that are characteristic to their particular nation, clan and/or family. The ensemble may frequently include pieces handed down for generations within the family, and may range from a look of dignified simplicity to the dramatically elaborate. The dance style is similar to the outfit itself-elaborate, expressive and powerful, but not so flashy and exuberant as other men's styles.

Men's Grass
Several tribes remember the grass dance as being part of the preparation in making a clearing for ceremony. The regalia is decorated with long, multi-colored yarn fringes which sway gracefully with the movement of the dancers' bodies and are reminiscent of the long, blowing grasses of the prairie. That fringe originally started out as sweet grass hung from the regalia. The dance movements are distinctive for their sliding, shaking and spinning motions, rather than the high kicking steps of the fancy dancer.

Men's Fancy
Known for their stamina, high jumps, and quick footwork, fancy dancers dazzle. Their outfits are constructed of two multi-colored bustles (worn around the neck and back), matching bead work, and whips which are held to emphasize the elaborate gestures of these spirited dancers.

Women's Traditional
These dignified women are admired for the respectful manner in which they dance. Their feet never completely leave the ground, symbolizing their close connection to Mother Earth. Their regalia ranges from intricately sewn ribbon-work cloth dresses to beaded hide dresses. Most are covered with cowrie shells, elk teeth, silver, porcupine quills, and other decorative objects. These women are referred to as the backbone of the tribal nation and they dance in a sedate and stately manor, often simply standing in place rhythmically dipping and swaying to the beat of the drummers.

Women's Jingle Dress
Based upon a young Ojibwe woman's dream, the jingle dress dance is considered a healing dance. Jingle dress dancers are often called upon to dance for a sick or injured community member. To be a jingle dress dancer, you must have dreamt about being one. Traditionally, 365 metal cones are secured on the dress representing each day of the year and a prayer is put into each cone. During the honor beats of a song, the jingle dress dancer uses her fan to spread the prayers into the four directions as the prayers are released from the dancing cones.

Women's Fancy Shawl
Compared to butterflies, these light-footed dancers wear brightly fringed shawls over their shoulders, which complement the twirling, prancing pirouetting steps of this high spirited dance. The word fancy refers to the footwork, not the shawl. Legend says that the young ladies and their shawls represent the transition from a cocoon to a beautiful butterfly. Beadwork and accessories match the multi-colored shawls, creating a splendor of intricate footwork.

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Native dancers are drawn to dance for different reasons. Some children are encouraged to dance and be competitive pow wow dancers. Others attend pow wows as children and take an interest on their own. "I would bop up and down on my parent's lap, and so they decided to make me an outfit, and I've been dancing ever since," remembers one dancer.

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I thank you for the generous introduction.

The committee has allotted me ten minutes. I am reminded of the committee that asked Woodrow Wilson to make a speech. "That depends," Wilson said, "if you want a ten-minute talk, that will take me two weeks; but if you want two hours, I can start right now."

In preparing my talk, I stumbled across such a dark a page in Chicago's beginnings that I decided it deserved a talk. I refer to the Treaty of Chicago of 1833.

In 1833, The U. S. Government called for a Council with the Pottawattomie, Chippewa, Ottawa, and other Native American nations. The Council convened just south of the present location of the river. There were several thousand Native Americans; and hundreds of wigwams stretched from the shore to the forest. There was also a swarm of adventurers and traders with large stores of whiskey.

Fortunately an English writer, Latrobe, who was there, wrote a full account. On September 10, when the Council opened, the principal U.S. Commissioner then read, "as their Great Father in Washington had heard that they wished to sell their land, he had sent commissioners to meet with them."

The chiefs replied that "their Great Father in Washington must have seen a bad bird which told him a lie, for, far from wishing to sell their land, they wished to keep it." And the Council adjourned.

For 11 days the Native Americans received free rations from the government. There were squaws, with children, dogs, ponies, and horses. The agents and adventurers sold huge amounts of whiskey. There were constant war dances, races, whoops and songs. All day there was feasting and games and dancing, and brawls and noise all night.

Finally, on September 21, 1833, in an open shed on the north side of the river, the council signaled it was ready to talk. Ravaged by epidemics, inebriated by whiskey, threatened by diminished hunting losses, and weakened by firearms, the Council acceded. On the next day, September 22, the chiefs signed the Treaty of Chicago.

For paltry sums, some paid in silver half dollars and most others promised, the Native Americans gave in. Fifteen million acres were transferred to the U.S. government in exchange for equal acreage west of the Mississippi and north of the Missouri. Chiefs agreed that all Native Americans would leave Illinois immediately and move west of the Mississippi within two years.

As time went on, Native Americans were driven farther and farther away into confinement termed "reservations." Was this life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or even respect for it?

The misdeed was not committed by the City of Chicago. The City of Chicago simply profited by it. The misdeed was committed by the federal government.

Now, Chicago cannot restore 15 million acres or any acres, but it can be an engine of justice.

If I were alderman now, I would act by inquiry, resolution and perhaps with dramatic effect. We should learn the whereabouts of the victims' direct descendants. What do they now appear to lack? What do they say they need? How can we make certain that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are available to them?

This is an Independence Day task for the City of Chicago to consider.

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The Dark History Of The Treaty Of Chicago

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I thank you for the generous introduction. The committee has allotted me ten minutes. I am reminded of the committee that asked Woodrow Wilson to make a speech. "That depends," Wilson said, "if you want a ten-minute talk, that will take me two weeks; but if you want two hours, I can start right now."

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Text of all Pokagon Potawatomi signed Treaties

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Text of all Pokagon Potawatomi signed Treaties

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TREATY WITH THE POTAWATOMI April 22, 1836 Proclaimed May 25, 1836 part 1 of 2 Ed. note: This is the first of two treaties made and signed at the Indian Agency on April 22, 1836. ...

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Nine leading architectural firms with experience in developing innovative riverfronts, parks, and public spaces, were engaged to provide their visions for a unified aesthetic along Chicago's riverfront.

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Nine leading architectural firms with experience in developing innovative riverfronts, parks, and public spaces, were engaged to provide their visions for a unified aesthetic along Chicago's riverfront.

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Timeline of Potawatomi history by Forest County Potawatomi

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Timeline of Potawatomi history by Forest County Potawatomi

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Timeline of Potawatomi History - Forest County Potawatomi

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In the beginning, the Neshnabek (Original People) settled along the shores of the great salt water (Atlantic Ocean), near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.

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Timeline of Potawatomi History

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Copy of The Potawatomi of Wisconsin Book

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Student Article about Chicagua and Potawatomi

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Student Article about Chicagua and Potawatomi

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Describes traditional Clan structure

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Traditionally, clans-groups of families-were what governed the tribal community. Each person and family was a part of a clan, and each clan had its uniquely important role in the community, spiritually and practically. When all the clans played their roles and worked together, it made for a healthy tribal nation.

Children were raised to adulthood by their clan relatives, who made sure to pass on appropriate behavior. No one wanted to misbehave because that brought dishonor to his or her clan. Inappropriate behavior could lead to exclusion, which was akin to death when communal life was the means of survival.

Bear clan traditionally managed security, mediation and collecting medicines for healing. Water clans like turtle clan and fish clan were responsible for caring for earth and water, making sure natural resources were in harmony with the people. Sky clans like bird clan and thunder clan were the intellectuals and spiritual teachers; their ability to oversee a long term project step by step aided community planning.

Each clan would host a ceremony at different times of the year, and who hosted depended on the animal they represented. For example bear and thunder might not be active in the winter, since they were hibernating and it wasn't their time. But when it was time for their ceremony, the hosting clans would invite the guests and serve the food, organizing all aspects of the ceremony for the other clans.

Today, the three most common Pokagon Potawatomi clans are thunder, bear and turtle. Since community breakdown following European contact and the removal of Indians westward, the clan system-like other aspects of native culture-has been nearly lost.

The Pokagon Band today is trying to reclaim the clan system, and revive the knowledge of clans in a contemporary way. In January several dozen citizens turned out for a clan talking circle hosted by the Department of Language and Culture. From the discussion it was clear that the community would like more information about Potawatomi clans and their roles and responsibilities. At a future gathering community members will build on that interest and circulate more information about clans.

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Traditionally, clans-groups of families-were what governed the tribal community. Each person and family was a part of a clan, and each clan had its uniquely important role in the community, spiritually and practically. When all the clans played their roles and worked together, it made for a healthy tribal nation.

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General Student info on multiple topics Q & A format

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General Student info on multiple topics Q & A format

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Native American language Native American culture Native American Indian craft
Native American Facts For Kids was written for young people learning about the Potawatomis for school or home-schooling reports. We encourage students and teachers to visit our mainPotawatomi website for in-depth information about the tribe, but here are our answers to the questions we are most often asked by children, with Potawatomi pictures and links we believe are suitable for all ages.

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What kinds of stories do the Potawatomis tell?
There are many Potawatomi legends and fairy tales. Storytelling is very important to the Potawatomi Indian culture. Here is one legend about

Potawatomi Tribe

Potawatomi is pronounced "Poh-tuh-WAH-toh-mee." It means "fire keepers." That refers to their traditional role in the Council of the Three Fires (an alliance with theirOjibwe andOdawa neighbors.) Potawatomi was not originally a written language, so you may sometimes see it spelled Potowatomi or Pottawatomie instead.

The Potawatomis are original residents of the eastern woodlands and prairie regions, particularly what is nowMichigan state. As more Indian tribes were forced westward into the Michigan and Wisconsin area, many Potawatomi people migrated into other parts of the Midwest, including Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Ontario, Canada. Some Potawatomis still live in this region today, while others were sent to Kansas and Oklahoma by the US government. Here is amap showing Potawatomi and other Indian migrations.

Each Potawatomi community lives on its ownreservation (or reserve, in Canada). Reservations are lands that belong to Indian tribes and are under their control. Potawatomi Indian communities are calledtribes in the United States and First Nations in Canada. Each Potawatomi tribe is politically independent and has its own government, laws, police, and services, just like a small country.

In the past, each Potawatomi village had its own chief. Usually the heads of leading clans became Potawatomi chiefs. Today a tribal chief is the political leader of an entire band, not just a village, and is elected by all the Potawatomi people.

Most Potawatomi people speak English, but some people, especially elders, also speak their nativePotawatomi language. Potawatomi is a musical language that has complicated verbs with many parts. If you'd like to learn some easy Potawatomi words,bozho is a friendly greeting and iwgwien (pronounced similar to "ee-gwee-EN") means 'thank you.' You can listen to some Potawatomi conversationshere and read a Potawatomi picture glossaryhere.

Today Potawatomi is anendangered language because most children aren't learning it anymore. However, some Potawatomi people are working to keep their language alive.

Here's the homepage of theForest County Potawatomi Museum. They have lots of information about Potawatomi traditions in the past and today, including traditional dancing and maple sugaring.

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They do the same things any children do--play with each other, go to school and help around the house. Many Potawatomi children like to go hunting and fishing or camp outdoors. In the past, Indian kids had more chores and less time to play, just like early colonial children. But they did havedolls and toys to play with. Older Potawatomi kids played team ball games--lacrosse for boys and men, and double shinny for girls and women. Like many Native Americans, Potawatomi mothers traditionally carried their babies incradle boards on their backs--a custom many American parents haveadopted now.

Potawatomi women were farmers and did most of the child care and cooking. Potawatomi men were hunters and sometimes went to war to protect their families. Both genders practiced story-telling, artwork and music, and traditional medicine. Unlike some tribes, the chief of a Potawatomi village could be either a man or a woman.

There were two types of dwellings used by the Potawatomis: dome-shaped houses calledwigwams, and rectangular lodges with bark covering. Here are some photos ofbirchbark homes. Potawatomi villages usually included a sweat lodge, meat-drying huts, and a ballfield. Today, Native Americans only build a wigwam or lodge for fun or for ritual purposes, not for shelter. Most Potawatomis live in modern houses and apartment buildings, just like you.

Potawatomi women wore long deerskin dresses. Potawatomi men wore breechcloths, leggings, and deerskin shirts. Here is a website withNative breechcloth pictures. The Potawatomis woremoccasins on their feet and robes in bad weather. Later, Potawatomi people adapted European costume such as cloth blouses and jackets, decorating them with fancy beadwork and ribbons. Here are some more photographs and links aboutNative clothing styles.

Traditionally, the Potawatomis didn't wear feather war bonnet headdresses like the Sioux. They usually wore aleather headband with one or two feathers standing straight up in the back. Potawatomi men sometimes wore otter-fur turbans. Both men and women usually wore their hair long, but in times of war, Potawatomi men would shave their heads in theMohican style instead. Sometimes they added aporcupine roach to make this hairstyle more impressive. The Potawatomis painted their faces for special occasions. They used different colors and patterns for war paint, religious ceremonies, and festive decoration.

Today, some Potawatomi people still wear moccasins or a beaded shirt, but they wear modern clothes like jeans instead of breechcloths... and they only wear feathers or roaches in their hair on special occasions like a dance.

Yes--the Potawatomi Indian tribe usedbirchbark canoes (made of birch bark stretched over a wooden frame) and dugout canoes (made from hollowed-out logs). Here is a website with information about theseindigenous canoe types. Canoeing is still popular within the Potawatomi nation, though few people handcraft their own canoe anymore. Over land, the Potawatomi tribe used dogs as pack animals. (There were no horses in North America until colonists brought them over from Europe.) Today, of course, Potawatomi people also use cars... and non-native people also use canoes.

What was Potawatomi food like in the days before supermarkets?
The Potawatomi Indians were farming people. Potawatomi women planted and harvested corn, beans, squash, and tobacco, as well as gathering wild rice and berries. The men hunted deer, elk, and wild birds and caught fish. The Potawatomis also tapped trees for maple syrup as Michigan people do today. Here is a website with more information aboutNative American Indian food.

Potawatomi hunters and warriors used bows and arrows and wooden clubs. Fishermen used spears and nets. Other Potawatomi tools included spouts and buckets for tapping maple sap, knockers for harvesting wild rice, and snowshoes for traveling in winter. Here is a website with pictures ofNative weapons and tools.

Potawatomi artists are known for theirquill boxes,basketry, andfloral bead embroidery. One style of bead embroidery, thePotawatomi weave, is even named after the Potawatomi tribe (though other tribes made beaded crafts this way too.) Like other eastern American Indians, the Potawatomi also craftedwampum out of white and purple shell beads. Wampum beads were traded as a kind of currency, but they were more culturally important as an art material. Thedesigns and pictures on wampum belts often told a story or represented a person's family.

What other Native Americans did the Potawatomi tribe interact with?

The Potawatomi were close allies with theOjibwe andOttawa Indians. The Ottawa, Ojibway, and Potawatomi tribes called themselves theWhat about Potawatomi religion?
Spirituality and religion were important parts of Potawatomi life, and some people continue to practice traditional beliefs today. It is respectful to avoid imitating religious rituals for school projects since some Potawatomi people care about them deeply. You can read and learn about them, however. You can visit this site to learn more aboutCouncil of Three Fires. The Potawatomi tribe frequently fought with theIroquois andSioux tribes.
Can you recommend a good book for me to read?
For young children, we recommend
the origins of the Potawatomi tribe. Here's a website where you can read more aboutPotawatomi stories.

Potawatomi mythology or this site aboutHow do I cite your website in my bibliography?
You will need to ask your teacher for the format he or she wants you to use. The authors' names are Laura Redish and Orrin Lewis and the title of our site is Native Languages of the Americas. We are a nonprofit educational organization working to preserve and protect Native American languages and culture. You can learn more about our organizationNative American religion in general.

Coyote In Love With A Star, which is a merry story by a Potawatomi author about the adventures of native trickster Coyote in modern-day New York City. Older kids may enjoyNight of the Full Moon, an adventure story about two thirteen-year-old girls (one white, one Potawatomi) in 1840's Michigan. If you want to know more about Potawatomi culture and history, two interesting sources areThe Potawatomi (for younger kids) and Potawatomi Indians Today (for older kids). A more thorough history book isThe Potawatomis: Keepers of the Fire. You can also browse through our recommendations ofNative American books in general. Disclaimer: we are an Amazon affiliate and our website earns a commission if you buy a book through one of these links. Most of them can also be found in a public library, though!

here. Our website was first created in 1998 and last updated in 2020.

Thanks for your interest in the Potawatomi Indian people and their language!

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Potawatomi Indian Tribe
An overview of the Potawatomi people, their language and history.

Potawatomi Language Resources
Potawatomi language samples, articles, and indexed links.

Potawatomi Culture and History Directory
Related links about the Pottawatomie Indians past and present.

Potawatomi Words
Potawatomi Indian vocabulary lists.

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Facts for Kids: Potawatomi Indians (Pottawatomie)

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Information about the Pottawatomie or Potawatomi Indians for students and teachers. Covers Potowatomi Indian food, shelter, clothing, crafts, and daily life in the Potawatomi tribe.

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From different tribal pages to stories and traditions.

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Native American Indians Native American Tribes What's new on our site today!
As a complement to our Potawatomi language information, we would like to share our collection of indexed links about the Potawatomi nation and various aspects of their society. The emphasis of these pages is on American Indians as a living people with a present and a future as well as a past. Potawatomi history is interesting and important, but the Potawatomi are still here today, too, and we have tried to feature modern writers as well as traditional folklore, contemporary art as well as museum pieces, and the issues and struggles of today as well as the tragedies of yesterday. Suggestions for new links are always welcome.

Sponsored Links

Our Potawatomi Websites
Potawatomi Language:
Information and language learning materials from the Potawatomi Indian language.
Potawatomi Facts for Kids:
Questions and answers about Potawatomi culture.
Potawatomi Legends:
Collection of Potawatomi Indian legends and folktales.

Potawatomi Tribal and Community Links
Official homepages of Potawatomi tribes and nations: (Oklahoma) (Wisconsin)(Michigan)(Ontario)(Kansas)(Michigan/Indiana).

Great Lakes Intertribal Council:
Forest County Potawatomi coalition with 11 other Indian tribes of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan.
Hannahville Indian School:
Soaring Eagle Potawatomi students' radio show and virtual museum of artifacts and history.
Neshnabe Institute for Cultural Studies:
Promoting the culture of the Three Fires Nations (Ottawa, and Ojibway, and Potawatomi), and other Algonquin peoples.
Potawatomi Bingo Casino:
The Potawatomi casino in Milwaukee.

Maps of Potawatomi Lands
Michigan Indian Maps: Wisconsin Indian Map
Tribal maps showing the original territory of the Potawatomi Indians and their neighbors.
Potawatomi Indian Maps:
Maps showing the locations of the Potawatomi reservations in Kansas and Oklahoma today.
Virtual Museum of New France: Southern Algonquians:
Historical maps and articles about the Potawatomi,Menominee,Kickapoo, and other tribes.

Potawatomi Lifestyle and Tradition
Prairie Band of Potawatomi Indians:
Potawatomi history, language, and cultural resources.
Forest County Potawatomi Tribe:
Profile of the Wisconsin Potawatomi nation.
Potawatomi:
Article on Potawatomi history and culture.
Algonquians of the Eastern Woodlands:
Ethnography of the Potawatomi and other Eastern Canadian tribes.
Potawatomi Flag:
Flag of the Citizen Band Potawatomi.
Potawatomi Clothing Native Costume Indian Headband Native American Hair:
Shawnee, Sauk, and Potawatomi regalia and hairstyles.
Potawatomie Fry-bread Potawatomi Cornbread Recipe Salmon Stuffed Frybread:
Traditional Potawatomi recipes.
The History of American Indian Lacrosse:
Lacrosse in the Potawatomi Indian tribe.
Prairie Band Potawatomi License Plates Citizen Potawatomi Nation Plates Oklahoma Potawatomi License Plate:
Potawatomi license plates.
Indian Belief:
Advice for people researching Potawatomi religion and other American Indian spirituality.
Potawatomi Legends:
Collection of Potawatomi Indian legends and folktales.
Indian Superstitions and Legends:
Potawatomi myths told by Simon Pokagon.
Potawatomi Fables:
Potawatomi children's stories.

Potawatomi Literature and Arts
Simon Pokagan Future of the Red Man On Naming the Indians Problems of the Indian Race:
19th century Potawatomi writer Simon Pokagan.
Native American Authors: Potawatomi Tribe:
Three Potawatomi authors.
Potawatomi Tracks:
Homepage of Potawatomi author Larry Mitchell, with excerpts from his book.
Potawatomi Studio:
Online art gallery by Prairie Band Potawatomi artist F. Mitch Battese.
American Indian Art:
Information, photographs and links about Potawatomi and other native art.
Citizen Potawatomi Nation Reunion Festival and Pow-Wow:
History of the Citizen Potawatomi powwow, with photographs.

Potawatomi History Links
Potawatomi History:
Tribal history of the Potawatomi Indians.
The Potawatomi:
Brief article on Potawatomi history and culture.
Walpole Island Chronology:
Potawatomi,Ojibwe, and Ottawa First Nations history.
Potawatomi Indians:
Potawatomi history in Ohio.
Treaty With the Potawatami Tribe:
Text of an 1828 Potawatomi treaty.
Chief Shabbona Shabonee:
Potawatomi Chief Shabbona.
Indian Creek Massacre:
History of violence between white settlers, theSauk and Potawatomi tribes.
War of 1812 Cause and Conduct Indian History 1800-1828 Battle of Mississinewa:
Potawatomi Indian involvement in the War of 1812.
Indians of Indiana:
History of tribal migrations through Indiana, with a map showing Potawatomi journeys.
Wikwemikong's History:
Three Fires Confederacy history (Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi).
Four Directions: Potawatomi:
Timeline and links about Potawatomi history.

Potawatomi Genealogy Links
Walpole Island Genealogy:
Walpole Island First Nation's genealogical database.
Ancestor Search:
Online lookup of Potawatomi and other Indian records through the Archives genealogy service.
Three Fires Genealogy:
Resource forChippewa and Potawatomi descendants.
Prairie Band Pottawatomie Genealogy:
Addresses and links for people with Potawatomi heritage.
Potawatomi:
Genealogical information on the Oklahoma Potawatomi.
Potawatomi Indians of Michigan:
Annuity rolls and resources for the Michigan Potawatomi.
Native American Genealogy:
Direction for those seeking Potawatomi and other American Indian ancestors.
Kinsmen Through Time The Potawatomis: Keepers of the Fire:
Potawatomi history books by R. David Edmunds, honored by the Citizen Band Potawatomis for his work.
The Prairie People Potawatomi The Mascoutens of Prairie Potawatomi Indians:
Potawatomi ethnographies and anthropology books.
Potawatomi Fables:
Children's stories by Potawatomi author/illustrator Jack Wooldridge.
Queen of the Woods; Also, Brief Sketch of the Algaic Language:
Autobiographical book by 19th-century Potawatomi writer Simon Pokagon.
Coyote in Love with a Star:
Whimsical children's story by a Potawatomi author about Coyote's adventures in modern-day New York City.
Potawatomi Indians of Michigan:
Potawatomi genealogy book.
People of the Three Fires:
Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi history in Michigan.
Native American Books:
Evolving list of books about Potawatomis and Native Americans in general.

Sponsored Links

Links, References, and Additional Information
The Potawatomi Indians:
Potawatomi links.
Neshnabek Links:
Link page for Potawatomi and other Algonquian Indians.
Potawatomi Indians: Potawatomi Tribe:
Encyclopedia articles about the Potawatomi.
Pueblo Potawatomi Los Potawatomi:
Information about the Potawatomi people in Spanish.

Go back to the Northeastern Indians homepage
Go back to the Native American Culture index

Native American flutes Native American names Cherokee Trail of Tears Tribal tattoos

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native american indian potawatomi people pottawatomi tribe indigenous pottawatomie indians aboriginal nishnabek nation amerindian potawatomi language lessons bode'wadmi linguistics pottawatomis potawatomies native americans potawatomis american indians history culture words three fires potowatomi potowatami pokagan shabbona

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Native American Indians Native American Tribes What's new on our site today! As a complement to our Potawatomi language information, we would like to share our collection of indexed links about the Potawatomi nation and various aspects of their society.

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A band is based on kinship and family affiliation. A nuclear family is part of a clan (cousins), a clan is part of a band (aunts, uncles, extended cousins), and a collection of bands make up a tribe. Chippewa Indians (Ojibwa, Ojibwe,

In Potawatomi culture, the clan name was similar to a surname in the Christian culture. The Potawatomi are organized into over 40 different clans today.These were divided into several politically independent, territorial bands that were linked by kinship and language. Numerous exogamous clans whose members traced their descent from a common ancestor through the male line were distributed among the various bands.
Michigan Indian Nations with Federal or State recognition
Although Potawatomi clans were patrilineal (meaning they traced their descent through the fathers line), individuals were also linked to some extent to the families of their mothers father, which provided a wider network of kin to interact with and count on in times of stress. Tribes from the Algonquin language group
Potawatomi Tracks: The Ballad of Viet Nam and other stories
The clans were exogamous, so individuals could not marry a person of the same clan. Upon marriage, a couple usually went to live with the husbands family, so each summer village included a group of men and their children who were members of the same clan and members of other clans who had married members of the main clan in that village. What is the meaning of the word kemosabe or Kemo Sabe?
Where Did Michigan's First People Live?
The intermarriages of the clans created links between different villages and these links were both reinforced and encouraged by trade and other bonds. These bonds existed not only within the Potawatomi tribe but also with nearby villages of related Ottawa and Ojibwe, whose members freely intermarried or lived with the Potawatomi. General cultural beliefs of Algonquin speaking tribes
Who were the Algonquin and who are they now ?
Kin relations demanded respect between those called brothers and sisters (including parallel cousins-fathers brothers children and mothers sisters children) and in-laws of the opposite sex. Joking relationships existed between brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, and between nieces, nephews, uncles, and aunts. Relationships with elders were founded on the utmost respect. Indian tribes that lived in Michigan
History of the Anishinabeg (Ojibwe) people
In addition to the clan structure, there was also an additional division of the people which cut across families and clans to create two opposing groups based on their order of birth within the family. Within each family, the odd-numbered children, for instance first, third, and fifth, were assigned to the senior side, while the even-number children were in the junior side. These groupings operated in games such as lacrosse and in some ceremonies and rituals. Rivalries between these groups were sanctioned and were extremely competitive. Indigenous Languages Spoken in the United States

Much of Potawatomi spiritual and religious life was organized around the clans. Each clan had a sacred bundle which was the focus of oral traditions which recorded the origins of that clan. Specific songs and dances were also associated with the clan bundles, and each clan had specific ritual obligations as well and types of knowledge, such as particular medicines and ceremonies. The clan structure and the associated bundles were the gifts of the culture hero Wisaka, brought to individuals in the past through dreams or visions.
Algonquian is a language group, not a tribe of Indians
Potawatomi names were given in the first 30 days of life in accordance with the clans, the moieties, and with an understanding of what that name meant, as well as the powers that went with the name. Usually some elder was given tobacco to "dream" on a name. This meant the elder would make an offering of that tobacco and then ask for the revelation of the name in a dream or direct vision revelation to ensure the correct name was given to the child. As previously stated, the name had to go with the clan, the moiety, and the family history as well. This was one of the ways to assure correct names were given to Neshnabe children. Kansas Indians
Oklahoma Indian Tribes
When a Potawatomi person receives their name, they are often also given the clan of the person doing the naming, thus it is possible to belong to two clans. Michigan Indians
Indiana Indians
Potawatomi clans often adopted children and even adults. This was one way of getting more members for the clan. Clan members of the same clan respectfully acknowledged each other with the greeting "Aaniin Dodem." Ontario First Nations

The Anishinabe (Ojibwe) people were once one large tribe that later split into three smaller tribes: The Ottawa (Odawa), Chippewa (Ojibwe) and the Potawatomi.

According to Anishinabeg tradition, there were originally six human beings that came out of the sea to live among the people. These six beings, which were Wawaazisii (Bullhead), Ajejauk (Crane), Makwa (Bear), Moosance (Little Moose), Waabizheshi (Marten), and Bineshii (Thunderbird), created the original clans. Algonquian Language Family Tree
Woodland Indian Tribes
One of the original beings, the Thunderbird, always covered his eyes, because when he looked at the people, they died. The other five beings urged Thunderbird to return to the sea because his powers were so strong. That is why there is no Thunderbird clan today. Tribes of the Three Council Fires

Beaver Clan
Ojibway, Anishinabe, Anishinabeg)

Bear Clan (Mikwa dodem) - Police and Herbal Medicine People
The Bear Clan was the largest clan, so large, in fact, that it was sub-divided into body parts such as the head, the ribs and the feet. Bear Clan members were the strong and steady police and legal guardians. They were protectors of the people. Bear clan members were war chiefs and warriors and were known for their thick black hair that never whitened even in old age. Bear Clan members spent a lot of time patrolling the land surrounding the village, and in so doing, they learned which roots, bark, and plants could be used for medicines to treat the ailments of their people.

Bird Clan (Binesi or Pneshi dodem) - Spiritual Leaders
The Bird Clan represented the spiritual leaders of the people and gave the nation its vision of well-being and its highest development of the spirit. The people of the Bird Clan were said to possess the characteristics of the eagle, the head of their clan, in that they pursued the highest elevations of the mind just as the eagle pursues the highest elevations of the sky.

Black Duck (Cormorant) Clan
Black Hawk Clan

Buffalo Clan (Pkocshuke dodem)

Bullhead Catfish Clan (Wawaazisii or Wawaazisiig dodem)

Catfish Clan (Maanamegwug dodem)

Caribou Clan (Adik dodem)
Waubojeeg or White Fisher was a leader of the Caribou clan.

Carp Clan

Crane Clan (Ajijak dodem) - Chieftainship
The meaning of Ajijak is "echo maker", derived from the word Buswawag meaning "echo". The Ajijak were known for their sharp piercing sound that carried across the lake and if you ever listen to the sound of the Crane, it is a very distinct call. Crane clan members were known for their loud and clear voices, and recognized as famous speakers.

The Crane Clan is one of the original clans and along with the the Loon Clans were given the power of Chieftainship. By working together, these two clans gave the people a balanced government with each serving as a check on the other. Some Crane people today are strong educators, singers of the drum societies, and tribal council members.

Crow Clan

Deer Clan (Waawaashkeshi dodem) - Gentle People
Deer Clan people, were given the power to be pacifists. It is also said the Deer Clan would not use harsh words and were also known as poets and artistic people.

Bald Eagle Clan (Migizi dodem) - Spiritual Leader
The Spiritual Leaders Clan of the people, which were given the power of having a sense of knowledge of what the future would bring.

Elk Clan

Fish Clans (Giigoo dodem) - Intellectuals
The Fish Clans claim their ancestor was the first to emerge from the sea. Today the fish clans are the Bullhead (Wawaazisiig), Sturgeon (Namewug), Catfish (Maanamegwug), Northern Pike (Ginoozheg), Whitefish (Adikameg-wug), Merman/Mermaid (Memegwesi-wug), and Sucker (Namebinug). The people of the Fish Clan were the teachers and scholars. The fish clan represented wisdom. They helped children develop skills and healthy spirits. They also drew on their knowledge to solve disputes between the leaders of the Crane and Loon Clans. The Fish people were given the power to be "star gazers." They were known for their constant pursuit of meditation and philosophy. Fish Clan people are known for a long life and baldness in old age.

Fox Clan

Frog Clan (Ganeda dodem)

Goose Clan

Great Lake Clan

Gull Clan

Hoof Clan
The people of the Hoof Clan were gentle, like the deer and moose or caribou for whom the clan is named. They cared for others by making sure the community had proper housing and recreation. The Hoof Clan people were the poets and pacifists avoiding all harsh words.

Huron Clan

Loon Clan (Maang dodem) - Chieftainship
The Loon Clan along with the the Crane Clans were given the power of Chieftainship. By working together, these two clans gave the people a balanced government with each serving as a check on the other.

Lynx Clan (Bizhiw dodem)

Marten Clan (Waabizheshi dodem) - Warriors
The people of the Marten Clan were hunters, food gathers and warriors. They became known as master strategists in planning the defense of their people. Members of the Marten (Waabi-zheshi) clan served as pipe bearers and message carriers for the chiefs. Shingoob and Nugaunub were two of the leaders of the Marten clan. The Marten clan were the survivors. They remembered everything so it wouldn't be forgotten.

Merman Clan (Memegwesi-wug dodem) - Water Spirit or Mermaid Clan
See Fish Clans

Little Moose Clan (Moosance dodem)

Otter Clan

Northern Pike Clan (Ginoozheg dodem)
See fish clans.

Pipe Clan
See Marten Clan.

Quail Clan

Rabbit Clan

Rattlesnake Clan

Reindeer Clan

Sturgeon Clan (Namewug dodem)

Sucker Clan (Namebinug dodem)
See Fish Clans.

Thunder Clan

Turkey Clan (Msese dodem)

Turtle Clan
King of the Fish Clans.

Water People Clan

White Fish Clan (Adikameg-wug dodem)
See fish clans.

Wolf Clan (Maiingan dodem)
The Wolf clan produced teachers and scouts. Wolf clan members lived mostly around Mille Lacs and St. Croix. Nayquonabe was one of their leaders.

Today some people still follow their clan duties, but, for the most part, the original force and power of the Clan System has diminished to a degree of almost non-existence. Still, clan relationships are held in high regard and are a matter of pride and respect for Potawatomi people. Clan symbols are sometimes still used on grave headstones to mark their lineage, and clan associations are often included when Potawatomi people introduce themselves, particularly in Canada.

Add to this resouce by posting your potawatomi bands and clans articles or corrections here. If you are suggesting a correction, please give the URL of the page the error is on.

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A band is based on kinship and family affiliation. A nuclear family is part of a clan (cousins), a clan is part of a band (aunts, uncles, extended cousins), and a collection of bands make up a tribe. Chippewa Indians (Ojibwa, Ojibwe, In Potawatomi culture, the clan name was similar to a surname in the Christian culture.

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NativeTech: Wigwams - Photographic Tour of Contemporary Wigwams

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Native American Technology & Art: a topically organized educational web site emphasizing the Eastern Woodlands region, organized into categories of Beadwork, Birds & Feathers, Clay & Pottery, Leather & Clothes, Metalwork, Plants & Trees, Porcupine Quills, Stonework & Tools, Weaving & Cordage, Games & Toys and Food & Recipes.

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potawatomi houses potawatomi lodges potawatomi shelters wigwam wigwams longhouse longhouses

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Traditional Potawatomi bands had two kinds of houses: the wigwam and the longhouse.

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Statistics of current pop and bands (check for accuracy)

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Statistics of current pop and bands (check for accuracy)

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Potowatami indians today are divided into seven distinct bands in the United States and three bands in Canada. They are a Woodland Indian tribe. The Potowatami language belongs to the Algonquin language stock. In their own language, the potowatami people call themselves Neshnabek, a Potawatomi word that refers to "original people". Chippewa Indians (Ojibwa, Ojibwe,

Estimates of the original Potawatomi population range as high as 15,000, but 8,000 is probably closer to the truth. Although they had undergone 30 years of war, relocation, and epidemic, the French estimated there were about 4,000 in 1667. Since all Potawatomi bands had gathered into four villages near Green Bay at that time, this probably was fairly accurate. Later estimates vary between 1,200 to 3,400, but the Potawatomi had separated into many bands, and these estimates failed to list all of them.
Michigan Indian Nations with Federal or State recognition
Accurate counts were not possible until the Potawatomi had been moved to Kansas. In 1854 the Indian Bureau listed 3,440 on the reservation, but some had left with the Kickapoo for northern Mexico. The report also mentioned 600 "strolling Potawatomi," who had avoided removal and were somewhere in Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin. It also failed to include the 400-600 Potawatomi in Canada. Tribes from the Algonquin language group
Potawatomi Tracks: The Ballad of Viet Nam and other stories
The 1910 census listed 2,440 Potawatomi in the United States, with another 180 in Canada - total of 2,620. The current population of all Potawatomi in Canada and the United States is almost 28,000. What is the meaning of the word kemosabe or Kemo Sabe?
Where Did Michigan's First People Live?
The Potawatomi people are located in Oklahoma, in southwestern and northern Michigan and northern Indiana, northern Wisconsin and northeastern Kansas in the United States and in southern Ontario and on the Walpole Island Reserve in Canada. General cultural beliefs of Algonquin speaking tribes
Who were the Algonquin and who are they now ?
Indian tribes that lived in Michigan
United States Potawatomi Tribes
History of the Anishinabeg (Ojibwe) people Citizen Potawatomi Nation Indigenous Languages Spoken in the United States
1601 S. Gordon Cooper Dr.
Shawnee, OK 74801
Official Website: Citizen Potawatomi Nation Algonquian is a language group, not a tribe of Indians
Population: Headquartered in Shawnee, they are organized under the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act with a current enrollment of more than 18,000. Kansas Indians
Oklahoma Indian Tribes
History: Federally recognized, the Citizen Potawatomi are the largest Potawatomi group. Most are descended from the Potawatomi of the Woods (southern Michigan and northern Indiana) including the Mission Band from St. Joseph in southwest Michigan. Acculturated and mostly Christian, it was easier for them to accept allotment and citizenship in 1861 than the more traditional Prairie Potawatomi. This led to a separation (not on the best of terms) in 1870 when the Citizens moved to Oklahoma. Allotment took most of their land in 1889, and they have kept only 4,371 acres, less than two acres of which is tribally owned! Most Citizen Potawatomi have remained in Oklahoma - the Indian Bureau listing 1,768 of them in 1908 - but during the dust bowl of the 1930s, many left for California. Michigan Indians
Indiana Indians
Ontario First Nations Forest County Potawatomi Community
P. O. Box 340
Crandon, WI 54520
Phone Toll Free: 800-960-5479 Algonquian Language Family Tree
Official Website: Woodland Indian Tribes Forest County Potawatomi Community Tribes of the Three Council Fires
Population: Federally recognized with an enrollment close to 800, they live in three separate communities with the tribal headquarters in Crandon, Wisconsin.

History: Probably the most traditional group, the Forest County Potawatomi of northern Wisconsin have retained much of their original language, religion, and culture. They are descended from three Potawatomi bands from Lake Geneva in southern Wisconsin who avoided removal by moving north to the Black River and Wisconsin Rapids. In 1867 they were joined by Potawatomi who had left Kansas. In 1913 the government accepted their residence in Wisconsin and purchased 12,000 acres for them. Since the original intention was to distribute this in individual allotments, the parcels were scattered, but resistance to individual ownership delayed this until they had re-organized under the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. All land, except for 200 acres, is tribally owned.
Ojibway, Anishinabe, Anishinabeg)

Hannahville Indian Community
N 14911 Hannahville B-1 Rd.
Wilson, MI 49896-9728
Phone: 906-466-2932
Official Website: Hannahville Indian Community
Population: Federally recognized since 1936, membership is almost 900.

History: The Hannaville Potawatomi at Wilson in upper Michigan share a similar history with their Forest County counterparts. Originally from Illinois and Wisconsin, they refused to leave after 1834 and moved to northern Wisconsin. For a time, some lived with the Menominee while others stayed with the Ojibwe and Ottawa in Canada. Some returned to the United States in 1853 but were landless. Peter Marksnian, an Ojibwe missionary, found some land for them in 1883, and Hannaville was named after his wife. Congress in 1913 acknowledged the Hannaville Potawatomi and purchased 3,400 acres of scattered parcels - 39 acres were added in 1942.

Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians
Huron Potawatomi, Inc.
2221 - 1-1/2 Mile Rd.
Fulton, MI 49052
Phone: 269-729-5151
Official Website: Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians
Population: Approximately 600.

History: Originally a part of the Detroit Tribes in southeastern Michigan, the Huron Potawatomi did not entirely escape removal. Gathered by soldiers and sent to Kansas in 1840, the bands of Mogwago and Pamptopee escaped and returned to Michigan. The government relented in 1845 when President Polk signed a bill giving 40 acres of public lands in southeast Michigan to the Huron Potawatomi. Another 80 acres was added to this in 1848, with a Methodist mission established the following year. Most Huron Potawatomi became citizens and took their lands in severalty during 1888, and federal tribal status was officially terminated during 1902. However, the Nottawaseppi continued their tribal organization and traditions, andthey were successful in regaining their federal recognition late in 1995.

Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Potawatomi (Gun Lake Tribe)
P.O. Box 218
Dorr, MI 49323
Phone: 616-681-8830
Phone Administrator::(616) 681-9510 ext. 343
Toll Free: (866) 681-9510
Fax: (616) 681-9520
Email:[email protected] , Tribal Administrator
Official Website: Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Potawatomi (Gun Lake Tribe)
Population:???

History:???

Pokagon Band Potawatomi Indians
104 N. Riverside Drive
Dowagiac, MI 49047
Phone Toll Free: 888-376-9988
Official Website: Pokagon Band Potawatomi Indians
Population: Currently, most of their 2,600 members are scattered among the general populations of southern Michigan and northern Indiana.

History: Roman Catholic and acculturated because of the St. Joseph mission, the Pokagon were protected from removal by treaty and were allowed to stay in southwest Michigan. Their name derives from Chief Simon Pokagon, a famous Native American lecturer during the 1850s. Refused tribal status under the Indian Reorganization Act (1934), their long struggle to gain federal recognition finally succeeded in 1994. With tribal offices located in Dowagiac, Michigan, the Pokagon are in the process of reacquiring a land base.

Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation
14880 K Rd.
Mayetta, KS 66509
Phone: 785-966-4007
Official Website: Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation
Population: Population in 1908 was only 676, but since then, it has grown to almost 4,000 with the tribal headquarters in Mayetta, Kansas.

History: Formed from the Forest and Prairie Potawatomi bands west of Lake Michigan, they were removed to southwest Iowa in 1834. They were accompanied by Ottawa and Ojibwe from the same area who merged with them. Placed on a Kansas reservation in 1846 with the Potawatomi of the Woods and Mission Band, the Prairie Potawatomi preferred to hold their land in common and remained in Kansas when the Citizens left for Oklahoma in 1870. They were eventually forced to accept allotment which reduced their land from 77,400 acres to the current 20,325 - 560 tribally owned. The Prairie Potawatomi are usually traditional, and many practice either the Drum Religion or belong to the Native American Church.

Potawatomi Nations in Canada
When removal to Kansas and Iowa began in the 1830s, some Potawatomi escaped by moving to Canada. Those from Indiana and lower Michigan slipped into southern Ontario, where they settled among the Ojibwe and Ottawa at Walpole Island, Stoney Point, Kettle Point, Caradoc, and Riviere aux Sables. At the same time, other groups of Potawatomi west of Lake Michigan crossed near Sault Ste. Marie to the Ojibwe and Ottawa communities on Cockburn and Manitoulin Islands. After the "heat was off," some of the northern groups returned to the United States and became the Hannaville Potawatomi.The Canadian Potawatomi over the years have intermarried with the Ojibwe and Ottawa blurring tribal identity. At present, more than 2,000 Native Americans in Canada can claim Potawatomi descent.

Walpole Island First Nation
R. R. #3
Wallaceburg, Ontario N8A 4K9
Phone: 519-627-1481
Official Website: Walpole Island First Nation
Population: ???
Council Affiliation: ???
Band Chief: ???
Community Facilitator: ???

History: Walpole Island has never been founded, legislationed, established, set apart or surveyed officially as a "reserve," but is often referred to that way. Walpole Island has the distinction of being "unceded territory" and the Southernmost First Nation "reserve" in Canada. It consists of six islands with Walpole being the largest, with a total land base of 58,000 acres. Although the Pottawatomi settled permanently at Walpole Island only after 1836, they had used the territory of southwestern Ontario at a much earlier date. When removal to Kansas and Iowa began in the 1830s, some Potawatomi escaped by moving to Canada. Those from Indiana and lower Michigan slipped into southern Ontario, where they settled among the Ojibwe and Ottawa at Walpole Island, Stoney Point, Kettle Point, Caradoc, and Riviere aux Sables. At the same time, other groups of Potawatomi west of Lake Michigan crossed near Sault Ste. Marie to the Ojibwe and Ottawa communities on Cockburn and Manitoulin Islands. After the "heat was off," some of the northern groups returned to the United States and became the Hannaville Potawatomi.

Wasauksing First Nation (Parry Island)
P.O. Box 250
Parry Sound, Ontario
P2A 2X4
Phone: 705-746-2531
Official Website: ???
Population: 956
Council Affiliation: None
Band Chief: Wilfred King
Community Facilitator: Doreen Trudeau

History: The Wasauksing First Nation are descendants of a larger Band known as the Southeastern Ojibway, who occupied the eastern shore of Georgian Bay, the north shore of Lake Huron and part of the northeast shore of Lake Superior. The Parry Island reserve is within the boundaries of the territory described in the Robinson-Huron Treaty of 1850. Two years after the treaty, the Band's request to have the reserve on Parry Island, instead of on the mainland as originally planned, was granted.

Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation (Kettle Point No. 44)
RR #2
Forest, Ontario, Canada, N0N 1J0
Phone: (519)786-2125
Official Website: ???
Population: ???
Council Affiliation: ???
Band Chief: ???
Community Facilitator: ???

History: ???

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potawatomi statistics addresses indian tribes tribe indians

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Potowatami indians today are divided into seven distinct bands in the United States and three bands in Canada. They are a Woodland Indian tribe. The Potowatami language belongs to the Algonquin language stock. In their own language, the potowatami people call themselves Neshnabek, a Potawatomi word that refers to "original people".

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-by Jim Thunder
I have been aware for some time that our people who have studied the Potawatomi language in college or in some other type of formal school setting are not able to read the old writings that have been left by some of our departed Elders. So with this in mind, I hope to set down on paper some of the complexities involved in reading and writing in the original Potawatomi style.

As a youngster I used to watch my father reading out of these old books, so I had the opportunity to look at them. He would see me and recite the Indian alphabet to me. If my attention started to wander, he would terminate the instructions then and there. Later in my life, if I happened to be at home between jobs, I would study some of these books. However, it was while my father was in the sanitarium that he started writing to me in Indian and I used to reply in English. After awhile I got real good at reading his letters. As my mother did not speak English, this delighted her very much. This exchange of letters went on for some time until one day I got brave and decided to answer him in our language. From that time on I was able to read and write in the Potawatomi language.

More recently, I have been looking in depth into our written language to try to determine why our own people have so much trouble reading the old Potawatomi writings. These old notebooks have a lot of information in them such as medicinal ingredients, and the dates of births and deaths of various people.

Beginning to Learn Potawatomi

The Potawatomi language is basically simple in that it only has four vowel sounds that make up the entire vocabulary. Compare this to the English language that has five vowels [a e i o u] , with each of them capable of several different sounds. The Potawatomi language uses only four [a e i o], and each has one sound. These four vowels are used in conjunction with other letters of the alphabet to form the Potawatomi vocabulary. Bear in mind that the person who developed the written language also never went to school in his life, so had no knowledge of vowels and consonants. The fact that he was able to do it at all is really an accomplishment.

Why then, is it so hard for a Potawatomi speaking person to be able to read the old documents? There are several reasons and I will outline them below:

One of the main reasons is that there were no formal standardized methods of instruction. That is, people learned the basic concept, then went on to develop their own style according to their own needs and limited knowledge of the English alphabet.

Some of the Potawatomi words that were in use in the late 1800's have died out due to lack of use.

When they described geographical locations it would most likely be the Indian name for that particular area. Sometimes it is the English name written in the Indian language.

Pure Potawatomi as spoken in Kansas is harder to read than the dialect spoken in Wisconsin.

A lot of Indian songs were written down and these are quite impossible to decipher.

Finally, because each person developed their own style of writing, some documents are harder to read than others.

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Forest County Potawatomi - Potawatomi Language

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by Jim Thunder I have been aware for some time that our people who have studied the Potawatomi language in college or in some other type of formal school setting are not able to read the old writings that have been left by some of our departed Elders.

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Remembrance of late 1800s Potawatomi Chief of Wisconsin band

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Remembrance of late 1800s Potawatomi Chief of Wisconsin band

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The American Indian Center of Chicago is the older urban native cultural center in the country and host of the Annual Chicago Powwow.

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Why Field Museum is overhauling Native American Section

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Why Field Museum is overhauling Native American Section

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Field Museum will transform its aged Native North American Hall in the next three years, working to develop the new exhibits with Native Americans as "community partners," the museum announced Monday.

It is a "much, much needed renovation," Field president and CEO Richard Lariviere said. "This project intends to correct the way the museum tells the Native American history by doing so through the lens and voices of Native Americans."

The hall will remain open throughout the three-year overhaul, with fall of 2021 as the targeted completion date, but some of the artifacts in the Chicago natural history museum's rich collection have already begun to be taken down.

"I think it's going to be one of the most exciting projects the museum has ever undertaken," said Alaka Wali, curator of North American anthropology. "The challenge is to bring out our spectacular collections, but contextualize them in a way that connects the past to the present and the continuity of the Native American experience."

The current displays date mostly back to the 1950s and in addition to being relatively stodgy in their presentation of materials by contemporary museum standards, they treat native peoples as parts of the past.

"What you see in their current exhibits, it really puts native peoples in historical context," said Heather Miller, executive director of the American Indian Center in Chicago. "It does not really signify to visitors that we're still a thriving people here in Chicago and Illinois."

Marcus Winchester, cultural director for the Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi, said, "It's essentially just old beadwork, old baskets, stuff like that just pinned up, and it has whatever tribe it's attributed to. But it doesn't tell the stories about who we are as a people, and it doesn't get into the meat and potatoes."

Another key issue, Winchester said, is that museums organize by chronology, but for his people time is a continuum, where "there is no beginning and no end," he said. "A lot of indigenous academics and professionals are encouraging museums to get away from the chronological timeline."

Miller and Winchester were among the native representatives who took part in a land recognition ceremony Friday morning that is part of the museum working to correct its record with regards to Native Americans.

In the museum's new outdoor northeast garden, richly planted with native species, Lariviere stood at a portable dais and announced that "in order to create this bright future and to become the inclusive, forward-looking institution that we aspire to, we must honor and acknowledge the nations that were the first stewards of this land."

He unveiled a new plaque in the garden stating: "The Field Museum resides on the traditional homelands of the Three Fires Confederacy: Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi. The area was also a site of trade, travel and healing for more than a dozen other native tribes."

Miller, whose center on the North Side of Chicago has been working with the museum on cultural issues for decades now, and Winchester, as representative of the closest Potawatomi group, in southwest Michigan and northern Indiana, both spoke at the ceremony.

"It was a wonderful expression of the Field Museum's commitment to working with native communities and making a positive change in the way they portray history," Miller said afterward.

Adrien Pochel of Chicago, of Cree and Lakota heritage, sang two native songs, accompanying himself on hand drum. The second, he said, was a contemporary song about the strength of Mother Earth and the life-giving power of water created during the recent fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline that would carry crude oil across traditional tribal lands from North Dakota on a southeasterly route to central Illinois.

And Maritza Garcia, a dancer of Choctaw heritage in a bell-decorated "jingle dress," performed a traditional Ojibwe dance. (The bells, Winchester later explained, signify rain and its healing powers.)

"It means a lot for such an influential museum in the United States to put themselves out there and acknowledge indigenous people as traditional land owners," Winchester said after the ceremony.

In his five years as cultural director he said he's seen more museums reaching out to tribes. "They want to make sure they get Native American input," he said. "Some are better than others. Some just want to ask Native American tribes for one last checkmark. That certainly isn't the case for the Field Museum, from what I've seen."

Development of the museum's new exhibits will take place over the next year or longer, museum specialists said, and will always include Native American scholars and community members as co-curators.

Among the goals that Wali outlined are to employ Native American workers in the hall who can help interpret the exhibits, to make a presentation that better melds past and present and to create a more dynamic hall, where material is rotated in and out more frequently.

"We can't do that without collaboration with the native community," she said.

sajohnson@chicagotribune.com

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Chicago's Field Museum announces plans to revamp Native American Hall - with Native Americans as 'partners'

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Field Museum will transform its aged Native North American Hall in the next three years, working to develop the new exhibits with Native Americans as "community partners," the museum announced Monday. It is a "much, much needed renovation," Field president and CEO Richard Lariviere said.

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First Nations Garden- Land Acknowledgement 

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First Nations Garden- Land Acknowledgement 

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click to enlarge

In a formerly vacant lot in Albany Park at the intersection of Pulaski Road and Wilson Avenue stand two tipis-one perhaps 20 feet tall, the other half that height-surrounded by dry, yellowed grass rising up from the cold earth. Across the street to the north is a Citgo gas station, and to the west is the large parking lot of the 17th District Chicago Police Department. The Chi-Nations Youth Council, a grassroots organization that champions environmental and social justice while creating safe spaces for Native American youth, and the American Indian Center, the oldest urban Native American cultural center in the nation, have leased the lot together with the intention of growing a garden.

The First Nations Garden will be a space for powwows, environmental education, and traditional ceremonies-and a chance for Chicago's land and water ecosystems to heal.

"It creates a healing space outside of the chaos of the metropolis that's known as Chicago today," said Adrien Pochel, 17, the interim co-president of Chi-Nations.

Nineteen-year-old Naomi Harvey-Turner, Chi-Nations' Sergeant at Arms, said the First Nations Garden gives her a sense of belonging. "It's not that often that you could practice so many of your traditions and be in that position of your ancestors inside a tipi, and smack-dab in the middle of Chicago," she said. Since November, Native American Chicagoans have gathered in the larger tipi to socialize, play traditional hand and stick games, and host storytellers around a fire.

Chi-Nations was established in 2012 by Native American youth who rejected the conservative leadership of the AIC. Since then, the groups reconciled and leased the lot in November 2018 with the approval of Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa and the City Council.

Adam Sings In The Timber, a Chicago-based photojournalist, assisted Chi-Nations members with setting up the larger of the two tipis. Sings In The Timber, a member of the Crow tribe, said the tipi "announces to [nonNative Americans] that we're still here. I know that there are a lot of people out there that think that we no longer exist. They see us as a vanished race, a race that just isn't around anymore."

The Chicagoland area is now home to over 50,000 Native Americans from over 140 tribes, according to the AIC. The name Chicago originates from the Miami-Illinois word Shikaakwa (referring to the smell of the plentiful wild onions in the area) and the Algonquin word Zhigaagong. The city was a hub for travel, trade, and hunting long before Europeans arrived on the continent. Before the 1830s, the Potawotami were the primary inhabitants of the area, so Chi-Nations intends to install a wigwam-a traditional dome-shaped dwelling-in the garden, an acknowledgment of the Potawotami's ancestral homelands and contributions to Chicago as we know it. While the city's location is ideal for sustaining plant, animal, and human life, it has not escaped the effects of climate change.

The Chicago Climate Action Plan (CCAP), a city initiative adopted in 2008, says the city's native ecosystems are in danger of being irreversibly damaged by rising temperatures. Since 1980, temperatures have increased by 2.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Winters have warmed by 4 degrees. Chicago's plant hardiness zone, which indicates the lowest average annual temperature that plants can survive, has already shifted to resemble that of central Illinois in the 1990s-think more sweetgum trees and less maple and birch. According to the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, Chicago is its own island of trapped heat. The rest of Illinois, until as far south as Springfield, is on average 10-15 degrees colder.

For the past decade, the city has been working to combat these potentially devastating changes. A 2007 Chicago Climate Task Force report suggested that Chicago reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020 to reach an 80 percent reduction by 2050. Transforming vacant lots into green spaces aids this goal. More green space in the city helps clean the air and manage both floodwaters and heatwaves.

"When we think about climate change, the plants are gonna move and they're gonna do what they have to do in order to survive here," said Fawn Pochel, the AIC's education coordinator (and Adrien Pochel's aunt). "We're gonna get with the system or we're not. We're gonna be the ones to fall off well before the plants."

Fawn, who is First Nations Oji-Cree, said her understanding of indigenous plants and medicines was passed down to her through generations of family members and is essential to her Anishinaabe culture.

"For a lot of nations' origin stories, people were the last to be placed here on Turtle Island," Fawn said, referring to North America with the name used by the Ojibwe and many other nations. "A lot of these plants are our relatives, so we grow up learning about them and how they help us as humans navigate through this world. They're not something that can be dominated. There's something that needs to be respected about them and the access that they give us to surviving here."

For now, the garden space is undeveloped, but Fawn said there are plans to open it to the public on April 13 for a powwow honoring the youth. The process for restoration at the First Nations Garden involves testing the soil and determining the plants that will best detoxify the land. Sunflowers, which have long been a staple crop for many Native American groups, are expected to be featured in the garden. These bright beauties actually break down and eliminate metals and other contaminants from the soil. Even while detoxifying a site, sunflowers can produce seeds that remain safe for animals and humans to consume.

Other likely candidates to be planted are echinacea and bergamot, flowers native to the prairies with deep root systems that clean the soil. Also being considered are a giant, ancient breed of squash called Gete-okosomin; strawberries, which are sacred in many Native American cultures; and the four Anishinaabe medicines: cedar, sage, sweetgrass, and tobacco.

"Aesthetic-wise, sure, these plants are beautiful, they have blooms, but also they serve purposes that go beyond what we see," said Fawn. "They keep the soil healthy. Their technologies are not just for us for building and medicinal purposes, but for our animal and insect relatives as well."

"In Chicago, as Native people, we always feel alone," said Adrien Pochel. "By learning our plant relatives, it gives us a chance to not be alone in this city. It gives us a chance to be able to connect with something that is in our DNA, which is in our memories." v

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click to enlarge In a formerly vacant lot in Albany Park at the intersection of Pulaski Road and Wilson Avenue stand two tipis-one perhaps 20 feet tall, the other half that height-surrounded by dry, yellowed grass rising up from the cold earth.

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John Low speaking about clan identity past/present

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John Low speaking about clan identity past/present

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with accompanying historical information

Provided by Kyle Malott:

Back left to right: Michael B. Williams, Andrew Rapp, Law Man In, Michael Quigno (confirmed by Karla Quigno)

Front left to right: Clara Winchester (confirmed by Marcus Winchester), Julia Winchester

Chief Andrew Rapp
BIRTH Feb 1862
Michigan, USA
DEATH 16 May 1938 (aged 76)
Hartford, Van Buren County, Michigan, USA
BURIAL Rush Lake Indian Cemetery
Hartford, Van Buren County, Michigan, USA
MEMORIAL ID 73139805 · View Source
The Hartford Day Spring, October 16, 1929
RAPP IS CHIEF OF POKAGON INDIAN BAND
HARTFORD MAN ELECTED AS TRIBAL HEAD AT POW-WOW SATURDAY
SEEK MONEY FOR TRIBE
Organize to Recover Funds From "Great White Father," and Give
Indian War Dance
Andrew Rapp, residing northwest of Hartford and one of the most
aggressive members of the remnant of the once strong Pokagon
band of Indians, was elected chief of the band at the pow-wow held
at the Hartford town hall last Saturday.
About a hundred Indians from Michigan and Indiana attended. The
men did the voting and gave Chief Rapp 23 votes, as against 12 for
Michael Quigno of Hartford and 8 for Michael Williams of Dowagiac.
They also elected Henry Alexis of Toquin as secretary and Michael
Quigno as treasurer. Five members of the band were chosen to act
with the officers as a business committee.
The purpose of the general counsel was to formulate plans for
taking part in the effort sponsored by Chief Law-Man-la, a wealthy
Sioux Indian from Oklahoma who has established headquarters at
Niles, to collect funds that various Indian tribes claim are due under
old treaties.
All business of the pow-wow was conducted in the Pottawotomie
language. Chief Rapp, who is a grandson of the famous
Photo added by Dennis Burlingham
Potawattomie chief Leopold Pokagon, addressed his tribesman in
their native tongue and explained the age old treaties upon which
the redman base their claims to compensation from the
government.
One basis for the claim is said to be a treaty provision for annual
payments to the Indians "forever." Although they have been battling
for recognition of their claims for years, the redman are now
inspired to new hope by the activities of Chief Law-Man-In.
The Pottawotamies voted to pay their tribal officers one per cent of
all moneys collected as compensation for their services.
In the evening the Indians staged a war dance for the entertainment
of the paleface friends. Indian costumes typical of the Sioux tribe
were brought here for the occasino by Chief Law-Man-In, and
different somewhat from the Pottawotamie tribal regalia with which
Michigan palefaces are familiar.
Following the war dance Chief Rapp and Wm. Mix brought out their
fiddles and played for a dance in which a number of paleface friends
danced with the native sons and daughters of the forest.
Saturday's general council was the largest held in Hartford in years.
Before the session ended an old tribal custom was changed and
Chief Rapp was made the presiding officer at all gatherings of the
tribe. A name for the organization was also adopted. It is "The
Michigan, Indiana, Ottawa, Chippewa and Pottawotomie
Corporation Society," intended to include the remnants of all the
tribes in the two states.
______________________________
LOCAL INDIAN CHIEF IS FOUND DEAD IN WOODS
Andrew Rapp, 73, Died As He Trudged Along Woodland Trail Near
His Home
Andrew Rapp, 73, Hartford's most widely known Indian and former
chief of the Pokagon band of Pottawattomies here, was found dead
in the woods late Monday on the Charles Drullinger farm, formerly
the J. P. Hoover place, three miles northwest of town, where he is
believed to have lain since his disappearance late Friday afternoon.
Pat Alexis, a nephew of the dead man, discovered the body as he
walked to Hartford along a path through the woods and swamp
which the Indians followed as a short cut to this village from Chief
Rapp's home in the forest north of the Paw Paw river and east of the
county line.
Alexis notified local officers, and Coroner Frank Thompson and state
police from the Paw Paw post were called to the scene. Coroner
Thompson decided that death was due to a heart attack as the aged
Indian trudged toward his home, and no inquest was held. The body
was brought to the Zuver & Calvin mortuary here.
Chief Rapp came to Hartford Friday and obtained his old age
assistance check. He cashed the check and paid two small bills, at
local stores. He apparently spent the balance of the money for none
was found on his body.
Henry Alexis, another nephew, was living with Chief Rapp in his
woodland cottage. The cottage of his brother, Pat, is nearby. When
Chief Rapp failed to return Friday night, the Alexis brothers thought
little of it. Mr. Rapp frequently went to the home of Julius Becker
near Paw Paw lake and remained for a few days, and he was thought
to have gone there. Not until the nephew discovered the body lying
a few feet from the woodland path was it suspicioned that harm had
befallen him.
Mr. Rapp was nearly a lifelong resident of the Hartford community,
having lived for many years on the 20-acre tract that was his home,
most of that being covered with the native forest he loved so well.
His wife died about 50 years ago, soon after their marriage, and he
had since lived alone save when his nephews or other of his
tribesmen stayed with him.
Chief Rapp was exceptionally well versed in Indian lore and was a
most interesting narrator of the history of the redmen. In his
possession were many rare treaty books and he knew the tribal
records of his race in which his people gradually ceded their lands to
the white man. Mr. Rapp was a carpenter and was known as an
industrious workman among his white neighbors by whom he was
often employed.
Mr. Rapp was elected chief of the local Indian band in 1929, and was
the last to hold that title. As such he conducted the tribal
negotiations with the government. He was a descendant of Chief
Leopold Pokagon and his son, Chief Simon Pokagon, who came
from a long line of tribal chieftans of early days.
Chief Rapp is survived by a brother, Anthony Rapp, residing in the
Silver Creek Indian settlement in Cass county, his two nephews in
Hartford and a nephew residing in Traverse City.
Funeral rites for him were held at 9 o'clock this morning at the
Watervliet Catholic church, the Rev. Fr. J. F. Murphy officiating, and
burial was in the Rush Lake Indian burying ground - a cherished spot
to the Indians as the last residing place of Chief Simon Pokagon and
hundreds of other members of their fast diminishing race.

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with accompanying historical information Provided by Kyle Malott: Back left to right: Michael B.

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Old style shaker or dance rattle from University of Michigan ethnographic collections

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Old style shaker or dance rattle from University of Michigan ethnographic collections

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an antique black ash basket with lid

While the colors on the outside of the basket have faded, the interior has maintained some of the vibrancy that originally covered the basket.

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an antique black ash basket with lid While the colors on the outside of the basket have faded, the interior has maintained some of the vibrancy that originally covered the basket.

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Fact page about birch bark canoes written for kids non-specific to Potawatomi

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Fact page about birch bark canoes written for kids non-specific to Potawatomi

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Making a Chippewa (Ojibwe) Birch Bark Canoe

Birch Bark Canoes
Facts, history and information about the life and lifestyles of Native American Indians. Birch Bark Canoes were the main type and mode of transportation used by the Native American tribes who inhabited the Northeast woodlands, and eastern Canada. The design and style of the birch bark canoes were based on the natural resources that were available to the tribes, in this instance the people made use of the numerous birch trees found in the forests and woodlands of their tribal lands. The tribes built canoes made from the bark of the birch trees over a wooden frame. These canoes were broad enough to float in shallow streams, strong enough to shoot dangerous rapids, and light enough for one man to easily carry a canoe on his back.

Native American Life Native American Canoes

Native Indian Tribes Index

Birch Bark Canoes Fact Sheet

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 1: The light, speedy birchbark canoe was perfect for travel along fast streams, rivers and shallow waters, was sturdy enough for rough waters and light enough to carry if necessary

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 2: Birch bark is a strong and water-resistant material that can be easily bent, cut and sewn. This made birchbark ideal for making the boats that were so important to the way of life of many Native American tribes.

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 3: The names of Northeast woodland tribes who built and travelled in Birchbark canoes included the Abenaki , , Chippewa (Ojibwe) , Huron and the Kickapoo Pennacook.

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 4: The birchbark canoe was, however, susceptible to damage as they were easily torn open, but they were easily repaired. Native Americans kept a sharp lookout for potential hazards and dangers along the waterways that could damage their boats, such as jagged rocks and branches of fallen trees

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 5: The bottom of the birchbark boat could be easily crushed through so the Native American Indians went barefoot, and entered the canoe very carefully

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 6: There were many different types and species of birch trees including the Paper Birches (Betula papyrifera), Yellow birches (Betula aleghaniensis, Cherry, Sweet and Black birches (Betula lenta) and the River birches (Betula nigra).

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 7: The Paper Birch tree is also known as the Canoe Birch and this was the favored tree used by many Native Americans. The trees can grow to over 80 feet tall and 16 inches in diameter.

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 8: The bark would often shed in large paper-like sheets and Native Americans, who hated waste and made excellent use of all natural materials, found they could make numerous items from the bark including clothing, dwellings and, of course, the birch bark canoes

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 9: The birch bark canoes were extremely important to the Native Americans. They provided a fast and easy mode of transportation that enabled them to travel long distances on hunting, fishing and trading expeditions. They also enabled Native Americans to gain access to hostile, enemy tribes to launch attacks in considerable numbers.

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 10: The birch bark canoes were built in many different sizes. They could be used by a single person but were usually built for 4 - 6 people. Some of the war canoes could take up to 12 Native Indians

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 11: The Huron canoes measured about 21 feet long (7 metres) and 3 feet wide (1 metre) and could carry four or five men and about 200 pounds of cargo (91 kilograms). Their ability to travel long distances was seen as great assets by the French who quickly allied with the Huron to gain an advantage in the lucrative beaver fur trade

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 12: Portage or portaging refers to the practice of carrying boats over land, either around an obstacle in a river such as a waterfall, or between two bodies of water. When Native American Indians wanted to avoid an obstacle, or move from one lake to another, they lifted the lightweight birchbark canoe out the water and strapped it across the back of one man who took it over land

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 13: The Mohawks and the other nations of the Iroquois Confederacy primarily used elm bark for their canoes due to the lack of suitable birch trees in their lands. They also built heavier, dugout canoes that were built by the waterways, used to get to their destinations and left for future use. Dugout canoes were far too heavy for portage.

Birch Bark Canoes Fact 14: Other Native American Tribes also used both the Birch bark and Dugout canoes such as the Mohican , , Fox , and the Sauk . Lenape

A suitable tall tree was selected with thick bark with no holes and as few branches as possible and was carefully cut down

The birchbark was then split along the length of the tree, and carefully peeled off in pieces to match the length and breadth of the boat

The birchbark was spread on the ground with the inside facing downwards

Stones or logs were placed on the birchbark as it was carefully stretched

The edges of the birchbark were gently bent upwards to form the sides of the canoe

Stakes were fixed into the ground at a distance of 3 or 4 feet from each other, forming the curved line which the sides of the canoe were intended to make

The birchbark was bent to the shape which the boat was to have, being held firmly in position by the stakes

The ribs of the canoe were made of tough hickory, cut into long, flat pieces

The ribs bent to the shape of the boat, with wider pieces in the middle, and the narrower pieces towards the ends

The ribs of the canoe were placed upon the bark about 10 inches apart

The upper edge of each side of the canoe was made of two thin poles which was attached to the ribs

The edge of the birchbark was inserted between the poles on each side, and was sewn or bound into place with cordage made from spruce roots or rawhide

The canoe was placed on a wooden frame and the birchbark was glued together with spruce gum that made the seams watertight

Thick birch bark or cedar planks were laid across the bottom of the canoe to step on to

The prowpiece was carefully shaped and the birch bark canoes were usually painted with designs or symbols

Birch Bark Canoes - Native Americans for kids

History of Birch Bark Canoes and Native Indian Life

Interesting facts and info about Birch Bark Canoes for kids and schools

Information about Birch Bark Canoes and different tribes

Native American Life - Birch Bark Canoes for kids

Birch Bark Canoes - Teaching resource - Teachers - Kids - Native American Life - Daily Life - Lives - Birch Bark Canoes - Leisure - Indian - Life - Traditional - Indians - Lifestyle - Customs - Custom - American Indian Life - Kids - Birch Bark Canoes - Pictures - Info - Information - Tribe - Tribes - Birch Bark Canoes - Native Americans - People - Early - Kids - Children - Birch Bark Canoes - Facts - Info - Information - History - Pictures - Birch Bark Canoes - Pics - People - Reference - Guide - Studies - Homework - Birch Bark Canoes

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Making a Chippewa (Ojibwe) Birch Bark Canoe Birch Bark Canoes Facts, history and information about the life and lifestyles of Native American Indians. Birch Bark Canoes were the main type and mode of transportation used by the Native American tribes who inhabited the Northeast woodlands, and eastern Canada.

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An aspect of traditional Potawatomi culture, the naming ceremony, has reemerged in recent years. Traditionally, Potawatomi believe that when a child is born, the Creator cannot see their face. In order to show the child to the Creator, the tribe would have a ceremony and the child was given a name.

Centuries of forced removals and interactions with Jesuit missionaries curbed the practice, but in an effort to strengthen our tribal bonds, members of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation have conducted several ceremonies in recent years.

Before a naming ceremony takes place, an individual seeking to be named must find two sponsors, a man and a woman, who will go through the ceremony with them. The sponsors are like godparents, and their role is to watch over the individual being named throughout their life.

To properly request a name, a person should give a gift of tobacco to the person they are requesting name them. In order to give a name, a person asks for a little background on their life and interests. When naming a child, it is important to remember that you don't give a title like "Little Bunny" that they may outgrow. Instead, sponsors should give one their recipient can aspire to as they become adults.

Prior to the naming ceremony, the person conducting the naming ceremony will smudge everyone who is participating with sage in order to cleanse the mind and spirit of negative energy. The ceremony takes place in a circle, and upon entering from the east, individuals give an offering of water and tobacco with their left hand. A fire burns in the middle while participants, both sponsors and those being named, offer prayers and tobacco to the four directions while walking clockwise around the flame.

The naming process can vary, but generally the person conducting the ceremony tells a little bit about those seeking to be named and offers a prayer to the Creator. The names are then given when an eagle feather is laid across the chest of each participant. Their Potawatomi names are spoken to the four directions, and everyone leaves the circle to the East.

The final portion of the ceremony, the post naming meal, is extremely important. Breaking bread with those who have named you is key to completing the process.

In the times before the removal period, elders of each family would conduct naming ceremonies for newborns and young children. The fact remains that after decades of lost practices, many elders do not have Potawatomi names themselves. Therefore, in the spirit of the older ways, we believe that once a name has been bestowed on you, you have the responsibility of being naming, no matter your age.

If you're interested in learning more about how to get a Potawatomi name, please contact the Language Department by visiting www.potawatomi.org/lang.

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The Potawatomi naming ceremony * Citizen Potawatomi Nation

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An aspect of traditional Potawatomi culture, the naming ceremony, has reemerged in recent years. Traditionally, Potawatomi believe that when a child is born, the Creator cannot see their face. In order to show the child to the Creator, the tribe would have a ceremony and the child was given a name.

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War of 1812/Effects of Europeans on way of life

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War of 1812/Effects of Europeans on way of life

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In early September 1838, General Tipton called for a council at Menominee's village near Twin Lakes in Indiana to discuss the issue of removal with tribal leaders. General Tipton had been assigned the task of removing the state's remaining Potawatomi population by Governor David Wallace who believed the Potawatomi couldn't live alongside a more "civilized" American population.

On the morning of September 4, 1838, a band of 859 Potawatomi, with their leaders restrained in the back of a wagon, set out on a forced march from their homeland in northern Indiana for a small reserve in present-day Kansas. To minimize the temptation for the Potawatomi to try to escape and return home militia members burned both fields and houses as the dejected members of the wagon train departed.

The journey was a 660-mile trek for which the Potawatomi were not prepared and through terrain to which they were not accustomed. The heat was oppressive and water was often scarce. They had only a few hundred horses to carry people and supplies, and promised additional wagons did not arrive before their departure; so, even the weak and elderly were forced to walk. The pace and conditions of the march debilitated the health of the travelers. A day rarely passed that a member of the party did not die, usually a child, forcing their bereft and exhausted families to leave the bodies behind in hastily dug graves. In the end more than forty people died during what the Potawatomi came to call the Trail of Death.

There is no single, master narrative of Native American removal from the Great Lakes. Instead, these indigenous peoples endured hundreds of removals, each surrounded by circumstances unique to each tribe, village or geographic area. This opening account of Indian removal from the Old Northwest is specific to the Potawatomi, but it is the result of a pointed shift in power in U.S./Indian relations that occurred after the War of 1812. In the years after the defeat of the British and their Indian allies in the war, the nature of the U.S. government's Indian policy and the goal of treaty making became increasingly hostile toward Native Americans, opening the door for the removals of the 1830s.
Early European Contact
Before the arrival of Europeans in North America, the Potawatomi and other Neshnabe peoples living around the Great Lakes largely functioned within a social structure that included a strong communal lifestyle in which individuals were bound together through ties of kinship, custom, and mutual necessity. Communities built their villages around clan systems and extended families. Traditionally, individual communities were led by village approved councils and headmen whose power stemmed from their relationship with, and influence over, the people. Leaders who wielded authority enjoyed the privilege because people respected their opinions enough to heed their advice. Leaders used this authority and power for moral suasion to create alliances and build relationships with councils and headmen of neighboring tribes. The structure of Neshnabe society, the existence of strong warrior societies, the sheer numbers of native peoples in the Great Lakes region and the superior knowledge of the terrain and warfare tactics conducive to fighting in the area meant that, for many years, the colonial powers vying for control of lands in what would become the Old Northwest were forced to deal with tribes on a government-to-government basis.

While European settlement allowed new alliances and lucrative avenues of trade to develop, it also caused new conflicts over territory and resources that resulted in a diaspora by the native population to avoid the detrimental conditions that accompanied political and social instability. By the end of the eighteenth century, the foundations for Neshnabe social structure were changed forever. Consensus traditionally governed Potawatomi village life - a system that worked as long as individuals who dissented were allowed to leave, new villages were free to form, and tribal leaders who disappointed the community could be cast aside.

Infighting, destruction of old alliances, and significant constraints on movement greatly hindered these options and turmoil ensued.

The years of warfare between colonizers further escalated tensions between the tribes of the Great Lakes, their Indian neighbors, and settlers, because European colonial forces pressured native communities to choose sides. The Potawatomi and their Neshnabek brethren were accomplished warriors. As such, during the fighting at the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century, colonial military forces sought them out as mercenaries and reached out to village leaders to form alliances. These village leaders consistently made decisions about alliances based on the potential advantages each colonial entity could provide them and their kinsmen. At this period in history the advantage an ally could provide the leaders in their regional struggle to gain territory and dominance over ancient and new enemies was the most important for survival.

The friendship of one village with a European power offered no assurance that other Potawatomi villages would not partner with opposing colonial forces. The Potawatomi fought almost exclusively on the side of the French in the Beaver War of the mid-seventeenth century that pitted the British-backed nations of the Iroquois Confederacy against the French-allied Algonquian tribes of the Great Lakes over questions of territory. They also sided with the French in Fox Wars of the early eighteenth century over trade routes and in the French and Indian War. During the American Revolution and War of 1812 some Potawatomi villages sided with the British because they were valued trading partners, while others sided with the revolutionaries and Americans because they believed it would benefit them in their fight to maintain territory. Many saw it in their best interest to remain neutral.
America's Policy of Indian Removal
After the defeat of the British and their native allies in the War of 1812, a marked change occurred in the nature of U.S./Indian relations. Throughout early American history, European colonies generally dealt with Native American tribes as separate nations with some legal title or claim to ownership of their lands, though they did not recognize absolute ownership. As a result, most government officials agreed that title could not be extinguished without voluntary cession by members of the tribes. Each European colonial power had its own policy for dealing with Indian nations.

Though the colonial era greatly upset many of the lifeways and social structures of tribes throughout North America, in the eighteenth century most of the tribes in the Great Lakes region still possessed the numbers, military strength, and social structure to encourage the United States to continue treating with them on a government-to-government basis.

The actions of the U.S. government immediately following the American Revolution offered some promise that the practice of recognizing Indian land tenure would continue under the new federal government. The Northwest Ordinance, enacted in 1787 stated, "The utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians; their land and property shall never be taken without their consent; and, in their property, rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed." In 1806 the War Department created the new position of Superintendent of Indian Trade to manage national non-military Indian issues, primarily commerce and diplomacy.

In the decade after the American Revolution the U.S. government used the treaty-making process to satisfy the "consent" clause of the Northwest Ordinance while gaining large land cessions from tribes and furthering the expansionist interests of the new nation. As unorganized lands became territories and eventually states, and public opinion increasingly leaned toward the removal of native peoples from the land sought by Americans, the Native American inhabitants who refused to conform to new laws clashed with settlers and civil authorities. While acknowledging Native Americans' unique condition as prior inhabitants of North America, political and cultural elites continued to insist that North America's original inhabitants could not be "civilized" and were doomed to extinction as American civilization flourished and expanded. Cession treaties secured lands for the United States that were furiously sought by both settlers and politicians and gave the desired perception of bringing order and security to the frontier.

It should be noted that in some cases the treaties furthered the interests of participating Indian tribes as well. Though tribes were very reluctant to cede any of their territory, the pursuit of their land through treaties cemented the fact that it was a commodity with a high value. The pre-War of 1812 treaties also reaffirmed the tribes as distinct political entities with unique and distinct negotiating powers. Even though the treaties clearly gave the lion's share of power and authority to the government of the United States, before the War of 1812 no federal officials openly questioned the legitimacy of the treaty-making system or challenged the logic of tribes entering into such agreements.
Post-war Treaties
The War of 1812 was a watershed in U.S./Indian relations, however, and attitudes toward the status quo of Indian policy quickly changed in its aftermath. The United States was now acting from a position of assured dominance and political and public figures began to question the propriety of treaty making with tribes, especially those who had recently sided with the enemy.

The first treaties after the American victory at Thames were fairly mundane agreements and followed a pattern that was common after a military defeat. They were treaties that were meant to establish peace with the tribes of the Old Northwest. On July 22, 1814, General Harrison and Lewis Cass, the Governor of Michigan Territory, met with more than three thousand Indians at Greenville and entered into a treaty that proclaimed peace between the tribes and the United States and promised that the signatory tribes would lend aid to the Americans in their final push against the British. This was the first of many such agreements to be made that summer. Between July and the middle of September in 1814, commissioners signed thirteen separate peace treaties with tribes from the Great Lakes region.

A few years later, Andrew Jackson was the most vocal public figure to question the practice of treating with American Indians. In 1817 he wrote to President Monroe that he had "long viewed treaties with the Indians an absurdity not to be reconciled with the principles of our Government." For Jackson, and other government officials of the era, the treaty-making process was no longer necessary. They reasoned that it was a practice that developed out of the need to enforce regulations and keep peace among tribes that were too strong and numerous for the United States to deal with in any other way. After the war, however, Jackson saw Indians, in their reduced numbers and confined by land cessions, as subjects of the United States. He urged Congress to "provide for their wants," but if the government needed it, he reasoned they had the right to "take" and "dispose" of any Indian land they deemed appropriate.

By 1830, officials at the Office of Indian Affiars, which was established in 1824, and the general public, largely adopted the mentality that all Native Americans should be removed west of the Mississippi River. Advocates for removal argued that Indians and settlers would have better lives if the Native population was removed, opening new territory for American expansion and distancing the Indians from the corrupting influences of Euro-American society. When Congress passed Andrew Jackson's Removal Act in 1830, the legislation had strong political and public support.

Increased tensions between Indians and settlers in the Great Lakes region, requests by officials from the OIA, and the outbreak of conflicts like the Black Hawk War in 1832 reinforced the urgency of removal. It was not an easy task, however. Despite the military loss experienced by many of the tribes and bands in the region, there was a great deal of resistance to the notion that the Indians of the Great Lakes should leave their homeland. As a result of these pressures from the public, Congress and the President passed additional legislation appropriating monies to hurry along the removal of the tribes from the Old Northwest. In one case, twenty thousand dollars was set aside for the explicit purpose of negotiating treaties to terminate Potawatomi tribal land titles in Indiana, Illinois, and the Territory of Michigan.

In 1832, individual Potawatomi bands signed a number of treaties with the government ceding large amounts of land, but these treaties failed to secure the Indians' removal from the area. Instead, tribal leaders insisted on small reservations within the ceded lands, ensured the retention of hunting and fishing rights on the land, and insisted on payments of goods and cash for property lost in recent skirmishes. In the months following these treaties non-Indian settlers swarmed the recently ceded lands and tension between Natives and newcomers escalated once again. The federal government was not willing let the violence escalate to the level of war.

The next year, in 1833, Potawatomi from the St. Joseph River, some from northern Indiana, and the Potawatomi of the Prairie, along with headmen and chiefs from the Ojibwe and Odawa tribes who lived along the coast of the Great Lakes, collectively referred to as the United Nation or United Band in government reports, signed the Treaty of Chicago on September 26 and 27. The Treaty of Chicago proved to be a watershed agreement in the dealings between these tribes and the U.S. government. Prior to this treaty, land cessions were relatively small and included land set aside as private reserves for certain signatories. The Treaty of Chicago, however, ensured a substantial land cession of roughly five million acres that were inhabited by all three groups around the Great Lakes and the removal of a majority of Potawatomi to lands west of the Mississippi River. Signatory bands were given five million acres along the banks of the Missouri River in what became Iowa and Missouri in exchange.

Though the Treaty of Chicago secured the largest single cession of Potawatomi land, the stories of the bands that entered into that agreement only tell a portion of the removal experiences of the tribes from the Great Lakes region. Several hundred Potawatomi lived in Indiana and other areas outside the territory ceded by the 1833 Treaty of Chicago. Some agreed to remove under later treaties and others negotiated with the federal government to stay in their homeland. The 859 Potawatomi that were remembered in the opening pages of this paper and who were removed on the Trail of Death in 1838 fell into this category, as did dozens of dispersed villages in the Great Lakes region.

These removals, and the dozens of others that occurred in the 1830s, were the result of a sea change in U.S./Indian relations that occurred after the War of 1812. For all practical purposes the powerful and belligerent nations of the Old Northwest were neutralized and the federal government treated them as such, so once American settlers and politicians felt that they did not have to deal with tribes as sovereign governments they altered the goal of treaties from peace and alliance to land cessions and removals.

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An Unsettling Legacy: The War of 1812 and the Removal Treaties of the 1830s * Citizen Potawatomi Nation

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In early September 1838, General Tipton called for a council at Menominee's village near Twin Lakes in Indiana to discuss the issue of removal with tribal leaders. General Tipton had been assigned the task of removing the state's remaining Potawatomi population by Governor David Wallace who believed the Potawatomi couldn't live alongside a more "civilized" American population.

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This letter was taken from "The Trail of Death, Letters of Benjamin Marie Petit" by Irving McKee, the Indiana Historical Society, v. 14 (1941), p. 97-101. French-born Father Petit was a Catholic missionary who accompanied the Potawatomi on the Trail of Death. At the time of writing this letter, Father Petit had become ill, like many of the Potawatomi with whom he travelled. Having been recalled by Bishop Brute, Father Petit began a journey but was unable to continue and ultimately died in St. Louis, Mo. on February 10, 1839.
Osage River, Indian Country
November 13, 1838

I arrived at South Bend [Indiana] on the 11 [September], about noon. At once I began preparations for traveling, and I devoted part of the evening to hearing the confessions of several sick people who had asked for me -among them was the old mother of Black Wolf (Makkahtahmoway), one of the Chiefs. The poor woman had been so much frightened by a discharge of musketry ordered by General Tipton when he arrested the savages - who were in council - that she buried herself in the woods, and remained hidden there for six days without taking nourishment. Finally she found a dead pheasant and ate it. She had received a terrible wound in her foot and could no longer walk. Fortunately a savage who was looking for his horses, having noticed something moving in the bushes ran in that direction and found the poor fugitive. He put her on his horse and transported her safely to a Frenchman's house near South Bend, where I heard her confession.

The next morning I started out again for Logansport [Indiana]. I intended to rejoin the emigrants [Indians] at Lafayette at least, but they marched so quickly that I did not see my Indians again until Danville [Illinois].

They were walking on the right bank of the river [the Wabash], and the line of wagons continued on the left. I tried several times to rent a private carriage to take my baggages and me to Danville - this was in vain. Finally I had to go as far as Perrysville, where, leaving my luggage behind, I took advantage of the kindness of a Catholic, M. Young, who offered me one of his horses and accompanied me to Danville with some other persons who were drawn by curiosity.

It was Sunday, September 16. I had only just arrived when a colonel, seeking a favorable place to encamp, appeared. Soon afterward I saw my poor Christians [the Indians], under a burning noonday sun, amidst clouds of dust, marching in a line, surrounded by soldiers who were hurrying their steps. Next came the baggage wagons in which numerous invalids, children, and women, too weak to walk, were crammed. They encamped half a mile from the town, and in a short while I went among them.

I found the camp just as you saw it, Monseigneur, at Logansport - a scene of desolation, with sick and dying people on all sides. Nearly all the children, weakened by the heat, had fallen into a state of complete languor and depression. I baptized several who were newly born - happy Christians, who with their first step pass from earth to heaven.

The General [Tipton], to whom I introduced myself, expressed his satisfaction at seeing me, and, with a condescension I did not expect, he arose from his chair, which was the only one there, and offered it to me. That night was the first I passed in a tent.

Early the next morning they heaped the Indians into the baggage wagons, and everybody mounted. At our departure Judge Polke, chief conductor, came to present me with a horse which the government had procured from an Indian for my use along the way. At the same time the Indian approached me and said: "My father, I give it to you, saddled and bridled."

We departed for the next encampment, where several days' rest was granted us. On my word the six chiefs who had till now been treated as prisoners of war were released and given the same kind of freedom which the rest of the tribe enjoyed.

The order of march was as follows: the United States flag, carried by a dragoon; then one of the principal officers, next the staff baggage carts, then the carriage, which during the whole trip was kept for the use of the Indian chiefs, then one or two chiefs on horseback led a line of 250 to 300 horses ridden by men, women, children in single file, after the manner of savages. On the flanks of the line at equal distance from each other were the dragoons and volunteers, hastening the stragglers, often with severe gestures and bitter words. After this cavalry came a file of forty baggage wagons filled with luggage and Indians. The sick were lying in them, rudely jolted, under a canvas which, far from protecting them from the dust and heat, only deprived them of air, for they were as if buried under this burning canopy - several died.

...We soon found ourselves on the grand prairies of Illinois, under a burning sun and without shade from one camp to another. They are as vast as the ocean, and the eye seeks in vain for a tree. Not a drop of water can be found there - it was a veritable torture for our poor sick, some of whom died each day from weakness and fatigue.

Soon we began evening prayers together again, and the Americans, attracted by curiosity, were astonished to find so much piety in the midst of so many trials. Our evening exercises consisted of a chapter of the catechism, prayer, and the hymn:

"In thy protection do we trust, O Virgin, meek and mild," which I intoned in Indian and which was repeated by the whole audience with a vigor which these new Christians bring to all their religious acts.

Often throughout the entire night, around a blazing fire, before a tent in which a solitary candle burned, fifteen or twenty Indians would sing hymns and tell their beads. One of their friends who had died was laid out in the tent; they performed the last religious rites for him in this way. The next morning the grave would be dug; the family, sad but tearless, stayed after the general departure; the priest, attired in his sole, recited prayers, blessed the grave, and cast the first shovelful of earth on the rude coffin; the pit was filled and a little cross placed there.

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Chronicling the Potawatomi Trail of Death: Letter from Benjamin Marie Petit to Bishop Brute, November 13, 1838 * Citizen Potawatomi Nation

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This letter was taken from "The Trail of Death, Letters of Benjamin Marie Petit" by Irving McKee, the Indiana Historical Society, v. 14 (1941), p. 97-101. French-born Father Petit was a Catholic missionary who accompanied the Potawatomi on the Trail of Death.

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History of the tribe of 3 fires

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FIRST FIRES

The story of Potawatomi and other Neshnabe peoples stretches back to times lost to history, beginning on the East Coast of what is now North America. By the time Europeans arrived, the Great Migration of prophecy was complete and the tribes were living around the Great Lakes, with a social structure that included a strong communal lifestyle. The people were bound together through ties of kinship, custom and mutual necessity.

Communities built their villages around clan systems and extended families. Traditionally, individual communities were led by village approved councils and headmen whose power stemmed from their relationship with, and influence over, the people. Leaders who wielded authority enjoyed the privilege because people respected their opinions enough to heed their advice; they used this authority and power for influence to create alliances and build relationships with councils and headmen of neighboring tribes.

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The story of Potawatomi and other Neshnabe peoples stretches back to times lost to history, beginning on the East Coast of what is now North America. By the time Europeans arrived, the Great Migration of prophecy was complete and the tribes were living around the Great Lakes, with a social structure that included a strong communal lifestyle.

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Bbon

Winter

Migrating to winter camps, Potawatomi would focus on attaining food through the trapping of small game and ice-fishing. Food that had been collected from the previous month's hunts, harvests and gatherings were used to supplement diets. Meats and fish were smoked, dried and stored on elevated pallets to deter theft from animals, insects and raiders. Crops such as corn, beans and nuts were also protected; stored in subterranean pits and baskets.

During Bbongises [Snow Moon] Potawatomi and other Great Lakes tribes played a traditional sport called Zhoshke'nayabo or Snowsnake. Typically played by men and boys, snowsnake was not only for amusement, but for spiritual and therapeutic means. It is thought that the comradery amongst players remedied the sick. Games lasted for several hours and were played by teams of four, each equipped with a spear-like implement called a zhoshke'nayabo. Carved from local hardwoods and polished smooth, zhoshke'nayabo ranged from two to seven feet in length and one inch in diameter. The object of the game was for each competitor to hurl their zhoshke'nayabo, down an icy track, farther than their opponent. When thrown, the zhoshke'nayabo was thought to resemble a snake slithering, hence the name snowsnake. The team with the longest cumulative distance won.

With much time spent indoors, Bbon was the time when elders would tell stories, passing on oral traditions and histories. Wiske or Nanabozho were central to these narratives as it was considered taboo to recount them outside of the winter months. Bbon also brought stories of the Windigo, a man-eating creature that traveled in blizzards devouring ill-mannered children.

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Winter Migrating to winter camps, Potawatomi would focus on attaining food through the trapping of small game and ice-fishing. Food that had been collected from the previous month's hunts, harvests and gatherings were used to supplement diets. Meats and fish were smoked, dried and stored on elevated pallets to deter theft from animals, insects and raiders.

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COLONIAL PERIOD

Early European contact brought fur trade and a short-lived time of prosperity for the Potawatomi people. The first account of the Potawatomi people was by Samuel de Champlain, a French explorer traveling the Great Lakes in 1615.

The first contact with the Potawatomi wasn't until 1634 when Jean Nicolet, a French explorer and interpreter, visited Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Potawatomi moved into Wisconsin because of pressure and raids from the Iriquois Confederacy. While there, they met Fr. Claude Allouez, a Jesuit priest, and in 1670 established their first contact with Christianity.

By 1679, Potawatomi Chief Onanghisse and French explorer René-Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle had developed fur trading in Wisconsin. Potawatomi villages were central to this campaign and often used as an area to stockpile fur. This trading, and other trading with Europeans led to intermarriage between the two cultures.

While European settlement allowed new alliances and lucrative avenues of trade to develop, it also caused new conflicts over territory and resources that resulted in an exodus by the native population to avoid the detrimental conditions that accompanied political and social instability. By the end of the eighteenth century, the foundations for Neshnabe social structure were changed forever. Consensus traditionally governed Potawatomi village life-a system that worked as long as individuals who dissented were allowed to leave, new villages were free to form, and tribal leaders who disappointed the community could be cast aside. European settlement significantly constrained Native mobility, eventually causing infighting and destruction of old alliances, all of which greatly hindered the structure of tribal communities. Turmoil ensued.

The structure of Neshnabe society, the existence of strong warrior societies, the sheer numbers of native peoples in the Great Lakes region and the superior knowledge of the terrain and warfare tactics conducive to fighting in the area meant that for many years, the colonial powers vying for control of lands in what would become the Old Northwest were forced to deal with tribes on a government-to-government basis.

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Early European contact brought fur trade and a short-lived time of prosperity for the Potawatomi people. The first account of the Potawatomi people was by Samuel de Champlain, a French explorer traveling the Great Lakes in 1615. The first contact with the Potawatomi wasn't until 1634 when Jean Nicolet, a French explorer and interpreter, visited Green Bay, Wisconsin.

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When Europeans began exploring North America in the early 1500's, they found a wilderness teeming with beaver, otter, deer, bear, fox, and other fur-bearing animals. The Native American Indians they met there trapped these animals for their furs. The Indians were glad to trade the pelts for European tools, guns, and beads and other trinkets. The Europeans, in turn, were eager to acquire the furs. They especially wanted beaver pelts, ideal for making hats.

The French considered fur the real treasure of the New World. They soon established trading posts and settlements in New France. This area in present-day eastern Canada extended from Newfoundland to the Great Lakes region. By the 1600's, the French had made the fur trade America's first big business.

The fur trade quickly proved to be more than just business. For centuries it profoundly influenced the economics and politics of the entire continent. Native Americans and Europeans exchanged more than goods. They exchanged ideas and learned each other's ways of life. The Europeans learned how to adapt to the wilderness. The Native Americans gave up their stone tools for the Europeans' iron tools. They learned the Europeans' ideas of trade. And they learned to use European instruments of warfare. The search for furs also lured explorers. They mapped the vast expanses of the continent. The French and the British competed throughout the 1600's and 1700's for the fur and fish trades. This kept them and their Indian allies almost constantly at war for more than a century. In addition, many of North America's great cities were founded as trading posts. Among them were Quebec, St. Louis, and Detroit.

The Early Fur Trade

Even in the 1500's, explorers were shipping furs to Europe from America. Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608. By that time, the Huron Indians along the St. Lawrence had already developed a trade system. They knew that the more pelts they could provide to the Europeans, the more hatchets, iron fishhooks, and other useful things they would receive in exchange. Therefore, the Huron set up a profitable system. They acted as trade agents between the French and the more remote tribes living farther west. This economic alliance proved otherwise useful to the French. Later the Huron would become their most important ally against the British during the French and Indian wars.

The French

The governors of New France licensed only a few French traders. The Indians brought their furs to them. In this way the French government was able to keep an eye on both the traders and the Indians.

Another group of Frenchmen were known as voyageurs ("travelers" in French). They guided the licensed traders through the wilderness. The voyageurs were experienced woodsmen. They paddled canoes up the St. Lawrence and along unknown streams to find Indian trappers with furs to sell. But hundreds of bold, young Frenchmen struck out into the wilderness without permission. They were called coureurs de bois. That French term loosely means outlaws of the woods. In the eyes of the government they were poachers and outlaws. But their explorations provided much valuable information about the vast continent.

The coureurs de bois loaded their canoes with trade goods. Then they pushed off into the wilds of Canada. Often they paddled 16 hours a day carrying two packs weighing 90 pounds (40 kilograms) each. They courted the Indians' friendship with gifts. They learned to dress, hunt, and eat like the Indians. Often they married Indian women and decided to settle with their tribes. They learned to survive the freezing winters. Sometimes they did not see another European for several years.

French explorers Pierre Radisson and Médart Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers, lived like coureurs de bois. They paddled up the St. Lawrence River and explored Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. They searched for rivers running north into Hudson Bay and found streams teeming with beaver. Radisson wanted to build a permanent fur-trading post on Hudson Bay. He knew that at certain times of the year, oceangoing ships could reach the bay from the Atlantic Ocean. He wanted to sell furs directly to European traders without having to transport the bulky cargo through the wilderness to the Atlantic coast.

Radisson and Groseilliers returned to New France with news of their Great Lakes discoveries. They also brought a fortune in beaver pelts, 60 canoe-loads. They talked of their plan for a French fur empire. However, because they had no license, the territorial governor fined them heavily. It is believed that Groseilliers was also given a prison sentence. The two were so angry, they took their idea for a post on Hudson Bay to France's rival, England. King Charles II of England liked the scheme. He chartered the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670. It would become one of the most powerful companies the world had yet known.

The British

The number of English fur traders grew steadily from the early 1600's. English traders started to threaten the French fur monopoly from both north and south. The English captured New Netherlands from the Dutch in 1664. That gave them control of the great Dutch trading post at Albany, New York. They traded with the Iroquois, who hated the French and their Indian allies, the Hurons. Wars between the French and British and their respective Indian allies continued for nearly one hundred years. The fighting ended in 1763 at the conclusion of the French and Indian War (1756-63). After that the wilderness explored by the French coureurs de bois belonged to England.

Under English management, the Hudson's Bay Company seemed to have a clear monopoly on furs. At first the company followed the early French example. Traders stayed at trading posts on Hudson Bay. They waited for the Indians to bring furs to them.

Meanwhile, independent French-Canadian and Scottish traders took trade to the Indians. Their method took much business from the Hudson's Bay Company. Finally, in 1774, the company set up an inland trading post. This was Cumberland House, near Lake Winnipeg. To meet the competition, the independent fur traders formed an association of their own. By 1784 they had established the Canadian North West Company. Its members were called Nor'Westers. The rivalry between the companies lasted until 1821. Then they merged into one Hudson's Bay Company.

The Search For Furs Leads To the Exploration of the West

Alexander Mackenzie was a Scottish explorer and a partner in the North West Company. He was typical of the many adventurers who explored and mapped unknown regions of the West while seeking fresh trapping grounds. Like many others, Mackenzie dreamed of finding the Northwest Passage. This was a fabled direct water route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It would lead straight on to China. Some said that a mysterious river "Oregon" rose west of the Mississippi's headwaters. A trader would have to carry a canoe only a few miles from the Mississippi to this "Oregon" and then float west to the sea. Nobody knew then that the Rocky Mountains ran like a wall down the continent.

While pursuing this dream, Mackenzie followed a mighty river that flowed north. When he found that it emptied into the Arctic Ocean and not the Pacific, he named it the Disappointment. Today it bears his name.

In 1793 Mackenzie tried again. This time he followed the course of Canada's Peace River into the Rockies. But he found no westward-flowing river. He and his men endured the difficult march across the Rockies. They came out on the Pacific coast, north of Vancouver Island. They had made a journey that few people could have survived. They found no waterway from inland Canada to the Pacific. But they had made the first known crossing of North America.

The American Trade

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from France. The next year he sent American frontiersmen Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore and map the territory. Boundaries were so vague that "Louisiana" could mean anything west of the Mississippi. The Far West, with all of its furs, could belong to anybody who got there first and claimed it. Spain held California. Russia had established fur-trading posts in Alaska and even in California. But ownership of the region called Oregon was still in question.

Lewis and Clark crossed the Rockies to the Pacific. They set up camp at the mouth of the Columbia River. By then they knew for certain there was no water route across the Rocky Mountains. But they had proved that the Rockies were passable. And they had seen that the land was rich in furs. Thanks to their reports and maps, the Northwest was no longer a complete mystery.

Starting in 1807, Spanish-American fur trader Manuel Lisa built a series of trading posts along the Missouri River. In 1809, Lisa formed the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company with Jean Pierre Chouteau and others. He became known as the Fur King of the Missouri.

In the meantime a German immigrant, John Jacob Astor, was planning a great venture in the fur trade. Astor had already made a fortune from the Great Lakes fur trade with his American Fur Company. Now he wanted to build a trading post on the Pacific coast. From there he could ship furs to China. He envisioned that his trade would circle the globe. Astor sent two groups to the Pacific. One group sailed aboard a ship called the Tonquin. The other group, led by Wilson Hunt, struck out overland. They followed in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark.

The Tonquin group landed at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1811. They began building Fort Astoria. They were joined by Hunt's overland party early in 1812. Astor beat the North West Company there by three months. But luck soon turned against him. Great Britain and the United States went to war in 1812. Rather than risk losing their fort to British gunboats, the Astorians sold it to the Canadian Nor'Westers.

Astor's group withdrew to the Great Lakes. They began plans for control of the plains and Rocky Mountain fur trade. Astor bought out competitors and allied himself with the Columbia Fur Company. By 1822 the American Fur Company was based in St. Louis. It was ready to compete with the Hudson's Bay Company. And it had a new American rival in the West, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company.

The Mountain Men and the Rendezvous System

The Rocky Mountain Fur Company was headed by William H. Ashley and Andrew Henry. It was really a loose partnership of the West's most rugged individualists. One of them was the famous western scout Jedediah Smith. Also among them were the western pioneers Thomas (Broken Hand) Fitzpatrick and Jim Bridger. In 1825 these mountain men, as they were called, started a new system in the fur trade. It was called the rendezvous, or meeting place, system.

The mountain men did not depend on Indian trappers for their furs. They did their own trapping. Nor did they deliver their furs to the buyers. Instead, in the summers they took their pelts to a rendezvous point deep in the wilderness. There they were met by a caravan sent out from St. Louis. The mountain men had no need for money in the wilderness. They traded the pelts for food, clothing, tobacco, guns, ammunition, and other supplies. After the trade fair, there was often a wild celebration at the rendezvous, as the caravan sometimes carried whiskey, too.

Mountain men lived in much the same way as had the coureurs de bois. They usually worked alone. They wore clothes made of buckskin and carried pistols in their belts. Sacks slung around their necks contained their few necessities-salt, coffee, tobacco, gunpowder. They were completely free from society and needed nothing they could not carry or shoot. They ate whatever they could catch. They preferred roasted buffalo, but they considered beaver tail a treat. They also ate roots, ants, and crickets. As a last resort they could even cut up and boil their leather moccasins for soup.

The Brigade System

Many fur companies competing with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and its mountain men used the brigade system instead of the rendezvous. In this system large parties of trappers went out together from an established fur post to hunt. They collected as many skins as they could carry back. Then returned together to the post.

The Hudson's Bay Company favored the brigade system. It was better organized and gave them more control than the rendezvous. John McLoughlin ran the company's post at Fort Vancouver, in present-day Washington state. He sent many brigades into the Northwest. He and the Hudson's Bay Company were determined to establish themselves in Oregon before the mountain men.

For 20 years rival companies competed for furs in the Rockies. The American Fur Company built forts and put steamboats on the Missouri River. Santa Fe traders brought furs from the Mexican southwest. In time beaver grew scarce. Then buffalo hides became the more important trade item. Mountain men chased the vanishing animals always farther into the wilderness. They came to know the Rockies well. Later they were able to help the mapmakers and to guide wagon trains across the continent.

The Demise of the Fur Trade

By 1840 the American fur trade was dying out. The trappers had done such a thorough job that the streams were trapped out. Even the wolves found few animals to hunt for food. Many mountain men quit trapping. They became scouts and guides for the westward pioneers. In the frigid Canadian wilderness furs were still considered a necessity for warmth rather than a luxury. There the fur trade continued. But it took on a different character as it grew into a modern industry.

Hudson's Bay Company lost its fur monopoly in 1870. But it made extra wealth by selling land and setting up stores and freight services. Today the company is still in operation. Its agents deal primarily with ranchers. They systematically raise animals for their furs, rather than hunt them in the wild.

Elisabeth Margo
Author
Taming the Forty-niner

Reviewed by
Shirlee A. Smith
Librarian
Hudson's Bay Company

How to cite this article:

MLA (Modern Language Association) style:

Margo, Elisabeth. "Fur Trade in North America." Reviewed by Shirlee A. Smith. . Scholastic Grolier Online, go.scholastic.com/content/schgo/D/article/a20/112/a201120
0-h.html. Accessed 20 Aug. 2019.

Chicago Manual of Style:

Margo, Elisabeth. "Fur Trade in North America." Reviewed by Shirlee A. Smith. . Scholastic Grolier Online. https://go.scholastic.com/content/schgo/D/article/a20/112/a201120
0-h.html (accessed August 20, 2019).

APA (American Psychological Association) style:

Margo, E. (2019). Fur Trade in North America. (S. A. Smith, Rev.). . Retrieved August 20, 2019, from Scholastic Grolier Online. https://go.scholastic.com/content/schgo/D/article/a20/112/a201120
0-h.html

SOURCE: The New Book of Knowledge

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When Europeans began exploring North America in the early 1500's, they found a wilderness teeming with beaver, otter, deer, bear, fox, and other fur-bearing animals. The Native American Indians they met there trapped these animals for their furs. The Indians were glad to trade the pelts for European tools, guns, and beads and other trinkets.

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Encyclopedia of Chicago synopsis of Fur Trade

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Encyclopedia of Chicago synopsis of Fur Trade

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The fur trade was the economic mainstay of Chicago during the first third of the nineteenth century. Fort Dearborn, which was established to protect U.S. interests in the fur trade, and the various trading posts formed the first stages of settlement preceding the land boom of the mid-1830s. Before that period, traders and travelers used Chicago mostly as a point of transit between the French and, later, the American settlements in the Mississippi Valley and the Straits of Mackinac. For a while, the wars between the Fox Indians and the French from the early 1700s to the 1740s closed access to the portage, and the line of communication shifted temporarily to the Wabash and Maumee Rivers south of Detroit. The flow of trade returned gradually to the more convenient location of Chicago, where the activity increased even more at the conclusion of the French and Indian Wars (1754- 1763).

English and Scottish merchants, now settled in Montreal, took over control of the fur trade and allied themselves with the remaining French traders. They imported goods from London for the Indian trade: flintlock guns, gunflints, awls, trade axes, knives, metal kettles, glass beads, liquor, etc. They gave credit to the traders ( bourgeois ), a mixture of French, English, and Scots, who were stationed at various trading posts in the interior and who collected the furs from Indians and French Métis. The most-traded furs included beaver, bear, black fox, deer, marten, and otter. French voyageurs continued to transport the goods and the furs in their bark canoes.

A number of small and large companies competed for the trade in the Great Lakes region. The North West Company, organized in 1779, worked mostly west of Grand Portage on Lake Superior. The short-lived General Company of Lake Superior and the South, followed by the Michilimackinac Company with headquarters at Mackinac, included northern Illinois, the Mississippi River down to Cahokia, and the Wabash down to Vincennes in their operations.

The British monopoly thwarted efforts by the Americans to enter the fur trade in the Chicago area after the Treaty of Greenville of 1795, in which Indians ceded six square miles at the mouth of the Chicago River to the United States. In order to break the British hold on the region, the U.S. government established Fort Dearborn in 1803 and opened a factory, or trading post. The factory system had been enacted by Congress in order to protect Indians from unscrupulous private traders and to regulate prices. The operations of the Chicago factory were successful in its early years, attracting good quality hatters' furs and shaved deer skins. The War of 1812 and the Fort Dearborn Massacre forced the closing of the factory. After it reopened in 1816, lack of financial support by the government and increased competition from the private sector gradually reduced its effectiveness until it was definitely closed in 1822 when Congress abolished the system.

The American Fur Company, established in 1808 by John Jacob Astor to compete with the powerful Canadian North West and Hudson Bay companies, practically took control of the fur trade in the United States following the War of 1812. It quickly became known for its ruthless practice of buying out or destroying the competition, as most private traders in Chicago soon found out. It appointed John Kinzie and Antoine Deschamps as its first agents in northern Illinois, and they reported to the company's headquarters on Mackinac Island. Their field of operations covered northeastern Illinois and the Illinois River. In 1819, Jean-Baptiste Beaubien was brought in to assist Kinzie and eventually became head of the outfit. Gurdon S. Hubbard replaced Deschamps in 1823 but soon went on his own by purchasing all interests of the company in Illinois.

Astor formed an alliance with the Chouteau family in St. Louis in 1822. By extending the trade of his company to the Missouri River region and eventually all the way into the Rocky Mountains, he consolidated commercial connections between St. Louis, Chicago, and Mackinac. By the mid-1820s, Astor's American Fur Company dominated the economy of Chicago and, in consequence, its social life as well.

The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 enabled Easterners to migrate in increasingly large numbers to the lands west of Lake Michigan. White settlements limited the supply of game for the Indians, who could no longer afford to pay their debts to the American Fur Company. By 1828, when Hubbard took over the business of the company in Illinois, the fur trade at Chicago was measured in hundreds instead of thousands of dollars. The Treaty of 1833, which extinguished all Indian land claims in Illinois, marked the end of the fur trade as a significant part of the Chicago economy. Diminishing profits convinced Astor in 1834 to sell his interest in the American Fur Company, which reorganized under Ramsay Crooks and moved its operations to the Far West. Fur trading disappeared from Chicago as the population boomed and land speculation became the rage.

B. Pierre Lebeau

Haeger, John D. "The American Fur Company and the Chicago of 1812-1835." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 61 (1968): 117-139.

Peterson, Jacqueline. "Wild Chicago: The Formation and Destruction of a Multiracial Community on the Midwestern Frontier, 1816-1837." In The Ethnic Frontier, ed. Melvin G. Holli and Peter d'A. Jones, 1977, 25-71.

Quaife, Milo M. Chicago and the Old Northwest, 1673-1835. 1913.

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The fur trade was the economic mainstay of Chicago during the first third of the nineteenth century. Fort Dearborn, which was established to protect U.S. interests in the fur trade, and the various trading posts formed the first stages of settlement preceding the land boom of the mid-1830s.