Iroquois County, Illinois - Chapter 15: The Pottaw Atomies, 1880

Chapter 15: The Pottaw Atomies

WHEN the Jesuits were extending their missions westward of Quebec they found a tribe of Indians, called Ottawas, living upon a river of Canada, to which the name of Ottawa was given. After the dispersion of the Hurons by the Iroquois, in 1649, the Ottawas, to the number of one thousand, joined five hundred of the discomfited Hurons, and with them retired to the southwestern shore of Lake Superior.* The fugitives were followed by the missionaries, who established among them the Mission of the Holy Ghost, at La Pointe, already mentioned. Shortly after the establishment of the mission the Jesuits made an enumeration of the western Algonquin tribes, in which all are mentioned except the Ojibbeways and Piankeshaws. The nation which dwelt south of the mission, classified as speaking the pure Algonquin, is uniformly called Ottawas, and the Ojibbeways, by whom they were surrounded, were never once noticed by that name. Hence it is certain that at that early day the Jesuits considered the Ottawas and Ojibbeways as one people. f

In close consanguinity with the Ottawas and Ojibbeways were the Pottawatoinies, between whom there was only a slight dialectical difference in language, while the manners and customs prevailing in the three tribes were almost identical.:}: This view was again reasserted by Mr. Gallatin : ' Although it must be admitted that the Algonquins, the Ojibbeways, the Ottawas and the Pottawatomies speak different dialects, these are so nearly allied that they may be considered rather as dialects of the same, than as distinct languages."!

Jn confirmation of the above statement we have the speeches of three Indian chiefs at Chicago in the month of August, 1821. During the progress of the treaty, Keewaygooshkum, a chief of the first authority among the Ottawas, stated that ' ' the Chippewas, the Pot- tawatomies and the Ottawas were originally one nation. We separated from each other near Michilimackinac. We were related by the ties of blood, language and interest, but in the course of a long time these things have been forgotten," etc.

At the conclusion of this speech, Mich-el, an aged chief of the Chippewas, said: "My Brethren, - I am about to speak a few words. I know you expect it. Be silent, therefore, that the words of an old man may be heard.

"My Brethren, - You have heard the man who has just spoken. We are all descended from the same stock, - the Pottawatomies, the Chippeways and the Ottawas. We consider ourselves as one. Why should we not always act in concert? "

"Brothers, Chippeways and Ottawas, - we consider ourselves as one people, which you know, as also our father* here, who has traveled over our country."

Mr. Schoolcraft, in commenting on the above statements, remarks: "This testimony of a common origin derives additional weight from the general resemblance of these tribes in person, manners, customs and dress, but above all by their having one councilfire and speaking one language. Still there are obvious characteristics which will induce an observer, after a general acquaintance, to pronounce the Pottawatomies tall, fierce, haughty ; the Ottawas short, thick-set, good-natured, industrious ; the Chippeways warlike, daring, etc. But the general lineaments, or, to borrow a phrase from natural history, the suite features, are identical, f

The first mention that we have of the Pottawatomies is in the Jesuit Relations for the years 1639-40. They are then mentioned as dwelling beyond the River St. Lawrence, and to the north of the great lake of the Hurons. At this period it is very likely that the Pottawatomies had theii» homes both north of Lake Huron and south of it, in the northern part of the present State of Michigan. Twenty-six or seven years after this date the country of the Pottawatomies is described as being "about the Lake of the Ilimouek."^: They were mentioned as being "a warlike people, hunters and fishers. Their country is very good for Indian corn, of which they plant fields, and to which they willingly retire to avoid the famine that is too common in these quarters. They are in the highest degree idolaters, attached to ridiculous fables and devoted to polygamy.

The Pottavv Atomies

We have seen them here* to the number of three hundred men, all capable of bearing arms. Of all the people that I have associated with in these countries, they are the most docile and the most affectionate toward the French. Their wives and daughters are more reserved than those of other nations. They have a species of civility among them, and make it apparent to strangers, which is very rare among our barbarians, "f

In 1670 the Pottawatomies had collected at the islands at the mouth of Green Bay which have taken their name from this tribe. Father Claude Dablon, in a letter concerning the mission of St. Francis Xavier, which was located on Green Bay, in speaking of this tribe, remarks that "the Pouteouatami, the Ousaki, and those of the Forks, .also dwell here, but as strangers^ the fear of the Iroquois having driven them from their lands, which are between the Lake of the Hurons and that of the Illinois.":}:

In 1721, says Charlevoix, "the Poutewatamies possessed only one of the small islands at the mouth of Green Bay, but had two other villages, one on the St. Joseph and the other at the Narrows. "§

Driven out of the peninsula between lakes Huron and Michigan, the Pottawatomies took up their abode on the Bay de Noquet, and other islands near the entrance of Green Bay. From these islands they advanced southward along the west shore of Lake Michigan. Extracts taken from Hennepin's Narrative of LaSalle's Voyage mention the fact that the year previous to La Salle's coming westward (1678), he had sent out a party of traders in advance, who had bartered successfully with the Pottawatomies upon the islands named, and who were anxiously waiting for La Salle at the time of his arrival in the Griffin. Hennepin further states that La Salle's party bartered with the Pottawatomies at the villages they passed op the voyage southward.

From this time forward the Pottawatomies steadily moved southward. When La Salle reached the St. Joseph of Lake Michigan there were no Pottawatomies in that vicinity. Shortly after this date, however, they had a' village on the south bank of this stream, near the present city of Niles, Michigan. On the northern bank was a village of Miamis. The Mission of St. Joseph was here established and in successful operation prior to 1711, from which fact, with other incidental circumstances, it has been inferred that

Father Charlevoix fixes the location of both the mission and the military post as being at the same place beyond a doubt. "It was eight days yesterday since I arrived at this post, where we have a mission, and where there is a commandant with a small garrison. The commandant's house, which is a very sorry one, is called the fort, from its being surrounded by an indifferent palisado, which is pretty near the case in all the rest, except Forts Chambly and Catarocony, which are real fortresses. We have here two villages of Indians, one of Miamis and the other of Pottawatomies, both of them mostly Christians ; but as they have been for a long time without any pastors, the missionary who has lately been sent them will have no small difficulty in bringing them back to the exercise of their religion. ' ' f

The authorities for locating the old mission and fort of St. Joseph near Niles are Charlevoix, Prof. Keating and the Rev. Isaac Mc- Ooy. Commenting on the remains of the old villages upon the St. Joseph River at the time Long's expedition passed that way, in 1823, the compiler states that "the prairies, woodland and river were rendered more picturesque by the ruins of Strawberry, Rum and St. Joseph's villages, formerly the residence of the Indians or of the first French settlers. It was curious to trace the difference in the remains of the habitations of the red and white man in the midst of this distant solitude. While the untenanted cabin of the

* Some confusion has arisen from a confounding of the Mission of St. Joseph and Fort St. Joseph with the Fort Miamis. The two were distinct, some miles apart, and erected at different dates. It is plain, from the accounts given by Hennepin, Membre and La Hontan, that Fort Miamis was located on Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the St. Joseph. It is equally clear that the Mission of St. Joseph and Fort St. Joseph were some miles up the St. Joseph River, and a few miles below the "portage of the Kankakee " at South Bend. Father Charlevoix, in his letter of the 16th of August, 1721, - after having in a previous letter referred to his reaching the St. Joseph and going up it toward the fort, - says: "We afterward sailed up twenty leagues before -vve reached the fort." Vol. 2, p. 94. Again, in a subsequent letter (p. 184): " I departed yesterday from the Fort of the River St. Joseph and sailed up that river about six leagues. I went ashore on the right and walked a league and a quarter, first along the water side and afterward across a field in an immense meadow, entirely covered with copses of wood." And in the next paragraph, on the same page, follows his description of the sources of the Kankakee, quoted in this work on page 77. Here, then, we have the position of Fort St. Joseph and the mission of that name and the two villages of the Pottawatomips and the Miamis. on the St. Joseph River, six leagues below ' South Bend. In Dr. Shea's Catholic Missions, page 423, it is stated that " La Salle, on his way to the Mississippi, had built a temporary fort on the St. Joseph, not far from the portage leading to the The-a-ki-ke"; and Mr. Charles R. Brown, in" his Missions, Forts and Trading Posts of the Northwest, p. 14, says that "Fort Miamis, built at the mouth of the St. Joseph's River by La Salle, was afterward called St. Joseph, to distinguish it from (Fort) Miamis, on the Maumee." In this instance neither of these writer^ follow the text of established authorities, t Charlevoix' Narrative Journal, pp. 93, 94.

St. Joseph

Indian presented in its neighborhood but the remains of an old cornfield overgrown with weeds, the rude hut of the Frenchman was surrounded with vines, and with the remains of his former gardening exertions. The asparagus, the pea vine and the woodbine still grow about it, as though in defiance of the revolutions which have dispersed those who planted them here. The very names of the villages mark the difference between their former tenants. Those of the Indians were designated by the name of the fruit which grew abundantly on the spot or of the object which they coveted most, while the French missionary has placed his village under the patronage of the tutelar saint in whom he reposed his utmost confidence."*

The asparagus, the pea-vine and the woodbine preserved the identity of the spot against the encroachments of the returning forests until 1822, when Isaac McCoy established among the Pottawatomies the Baptist mission called Carey, out of respect for the Rev. Mr. Carey, a missionary of the same church in Hindostan. "It issaid that the Pottawatomies themselves selected this spot for Carey's, mission, it being the site of their old village. This must have been very populous, as the remains of corn-hills are very visible at this, time, and are said to extend over a thousand acres. The village was finally abandoned about fifty years ago (1773), but there are a few of the oldest of the nation who still recollect the sites of their respective huts. They are said to frequently visit the establishment and to trace with deep feeling a spot which is endeared to them." f

On a cold winter night in 1833 a traveler was ferried over the St. Joseph at the then straggling village of Niles. "Ascending the bank, a beautiful plain with a clump of trees here and there upon its surface opened to his view. The establishment of Carey's mission, a long, low, white building, could be distinguished afar off faintly in the moonlight, while several winter lodges of the Pottawatomies were plainly visible over the plain." *

Concerning the Pottawatomie village near Detroit, and also some of the customs peculiar to the tribe, we have the following account. It was written in 1718 : §

| Apaquois, matting1 made of flag's or rushes; from apee, a leaf, and wig^ww'am, a hut. They cover their huts with mats made of rushes platted. Carver's Travels.

which are made of mat-grass. The women do all the work. The men belonging to that nation are well clothed, like our domiciliated Indians at Montreal. Their entire occupation is hunting arid dress ; they make use of a great deal of vermilion, and in winter wear buffalo robes richly painted, and in summer either blue or red cloth. They play a good deal at La Crosse in summer, twenty or more on each side. Their bat is a sort of a little racket, and the ball with which they play is made of very heavy wood, somewhat larger than the balls used at tennis. When playing they are entirely naked, except a breech cloth and moccasins on their feet. Their body is completely painted with all sorts of colors. Some, with white clay, trace white lace on their bodies, as if on all the seams of a coat, and at a distance it would be apt to be taken for silver lace. They play very deep and often. The bets sometimes amount to more than eight hundred livres. They set up two poles, and commence the game from the center; one party propels the ball from one side and the others from the opposite, and whichever reaches the goal wins. This is fine recreation and worth seeing. They often play village against village, the Poux* against the Ottawas or Hurons, and lay heavy stakes. Sometimes Frenchmen join in the game with them. The women cultivate Indian corn, beans, peas, squashes and melons, which come up very fine. The women and girls dance at night ; adorn themselves considerably, grease their hair, put on a white shift, paint their cheeks with vermilion, and wear whatever wampum they possess, and are very tidy in their way. They dance to the sound of the drum and sisiquoi, which is a sort of gourd containing some grains of shot. Four or five young men sing and beat time with the drum and sisiquoi, and the women keep time and do not lose a step. It is very entertaining, and lasts almost the entire night. The old men often dance the Medicine, f They resemble a set of demons ; and all this takes place during the night. The young men often dance in a circle and strike posts. It is then they recount their achievements and dance, at the same time, the war dance ; and whenever they act thus they are highly ornamented. It is altogether very curious. They often perform these things, for 1 tobacco. "When they go hunting, which is every fall, they carry their apaquois with th^em, to hut under at night. Everybody follows,

* The Pottawatomies were sometimes known by the contraction Poux. La Hontan uses this name, and erroneously confounds them with the Puans or Winnebagoes. In giving the coat-of-arms of the Pottawatomies, representing a dog crouched in the grass, he says: "They were called Puants." Vol. 2, p. 84.

Origin Of Pott Aw Atom Ie

The Pottawatomies swarmed from their prolific hives about the islands of Mackinaw, and spread themselves over portions of Wisconsin, and eastward to their ancient homes in Michigan. At a later day they extended themselves upon the territory of the ancient Illinois, covering a large portion of the state. From the St. Joseph River and Detroit their bands moved southward over that part of Indiana north and west of the Wabash, and thence down that stream. They were a populous horde of hardy children of the forests, of great stamina, and their constitutions were hardened by the rigorous climate of the northern lakes.

Among the old French writers the orthography of the word Pottawatomies varied to suit the taste of the writer. We give some of the forms : Poutouatirni, * Pouteotatamis,f Poutouatamies,^; Poutewatamis,^ Pautawattamies, Puttewatamies, Pottowottamies and Pottawattamies. | The tribe was divided into four clans, the Golden Carp, the Frog, the Crab, and the Tortoise. *^ The nation was not like the Illinois and Miamis, divided into separate tribes, but the different bands would separate or unite according to the scarcity or abundance of game.

The word Pottawatomie signifies, in their own language, we are malting a fire, for the origin of which they have the following tradition : " It is said that a Miami, having wandered out from his cabin, met three Indians whose language was unintelligible to him; by signs and motions he invited them to follow him to his cabin, where they were hospitably entertained, and where they remained until after dark. During the night two of the strange Indians stole from the hut, while their comrade and host were asleep ; they took a few embers from the cabin, and, placing these near the door of the hut, they made a fire, which, being afterward seen by the Miami and remaining guest, was understood to imply a council fire in token of peace between the two nations. From this circumstance the Miami called them in his language Wa-ho-na-ha, or the fire-makers, which, being translated into the language of the three guests, produced the term by which their nation has ever since been distinguished."

IT Enumeration of the Indian tribes, the Warriors and Armorial Bearings of each Nation, made in 1736. Published in Documentary History of New York.

The Pottawatomies were unswerving in their adherence to the French, when the latter had possession of the boundless Northwest. In 1712, when a large force of Mascoutins and Foxes besieged Detroit, they were conspicuous for their fidelity. They rallied the other tribes to the assistance of the French, and notified the besieged garrison to hold out against their enemies until their arrival. Makis-abie, the war chief of the Pottawatomies, sent word through Mr. de Vincennes, "just arrived from the Miami country, that he would soon be at Detroit with six hundred of his warriors to aid the French and eat those miserable nations who had troubled all the country." The commandant, M. du Buisson, was gratified when he ascended a bastion, and looking toward the forest saw the army of the nations, issuing from it ; the Pottawatomies, the Illinois, the Missouris, the Ottawas, the Sacs and the Menominees were there, armed and painted in all the glory of war. Detroit never saw such a collection. " My Father," says the chief to the commandant, "I speak to you on the part of all the nations, your children who are before you. What you did last year in drawing their flesh from the fire, which the Outagamies (Foxes) were about to roast and eat, demands we should bring you our bodies to make you the master of them. We do not fear death, whenever it is necessary to die for you. We have only to request that you pray the father of all nations to have pity on our women and our children, in case we lose our lives for you. We beg you throw a blade of grass upon our bones to protect them from the flies. You see, my father, that we have left our villages, our women and children to hasten to join you. Have pity on us ; give us something to eat and a little tobacco to smoke. We have come a long ways and are destitute of everything. Give us powder and balls to fight with you."

Makisabie, the Pottawatomie, said to the Foxes and Mascoutines: "Wicked nations that you are, you hope to frighten us by all the red color which you exhibit in your village. Learn that if the earth is covered with blood, it will be with yours. You talk to us of the English, they are the cause of your destruction, because you have listened to their bad council. . . . The English, who are cowards, only defend themselves by killing men by that wicked strong drink, which has caused so many men to die after drinking it. Thus we shall see what will happen to you for listening to them."f

* Long's Expedition to the Sources of the St. Peter's River, vol. 1, pp. 91, 92, 93. t The extracts we have quoted are taken from the official report of Du Buisson

Waks Against The Whites

The Pottawatomies sustained their alliance with the French continuously to the time of the overthrow of their power in the northwest. They then aided their kinsman, Pontiac, in his attempt torecover the same territory from the British. They fought on the side of the British against the Americans throughout the war of the revolution, and their war parties made destructive and frequent raids upon the line of pioneer settlements in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. In the war of 1812 they were again ranged on the side of the British, with their bloody hands lifted alike against the men, women and children of "the States."

In the programme of Pontiac' s war the capture of Post St. Joseph, on the St. Joseph's river of Lake Michigan, was assigned to the Pottawatomies, which was effected as will be hereafter narrated.

It was also the Pottawatomies who perpetrated the massacre at Chicago on the 15th day of August, 1812. Bands of this tribe, from, their villages on the St. Joseph, the Kankakee and the Illinois rivers, whose numbers were augmented by the appearance of Metea with his warriors, from their village westward of Fort Wayne, fell upon the forces of Captain Heald, and the defenseless women and children retreating with him after the surrender of Fort Dearborn, and murdered or made prisoners of them all. Metea was a conspicuous leader in this horrible affair.*

Robert Dixon, the British trader sent out among the Indiansduring the war of 1812 to raise recruits for Proctor and Tecumseh, gathered in the neighborhood of Chicago, which after the massacre was his place of general rendezvous, nearly one thousand warriors of as wild and cruel savages as ever disgraced the human race. They were the most worthless and abandoned desperadoes whom Dixon had been enabled to collect from among all the tribes he had visited. These accomplices of the British were to be let loose upon the remote settlements under the leadership of the Pottawatomie chief, Mai-pock, or Mai-po, a monster in human form, who distinguished himself with a girdle sewed full of human scalps, which he wore around his waist, and strings of bear's claws and bills of owls and hawks around his ankles, worn as trophies of his power in arms and as a terror to his enemies, f relating to the siege of Detroit. The manuscript copy of it was obtained from the archives at Paris, by Gen. Cass, when minister to France, and is published at length in volume III of the History of Wisconsin, compiled by the direction of the legislature of that state by William R. Smith, President of the State Historical Society ; a work of very great value, not only to the State of Wisconsin but to the entire Northwest, for the amount of reliable historical information it contains.

Their manners, like their dialect, were rough and barbarous as compared with other Algonquin tribes. They were not the civil, modest people, an exceptional and christianized band of whom the Jesuits before quoted drew a flattering description.

"It is a fact that for many years the current of emigration as to the tribes east of the Mississippi has been from the north to the south. This was owing to two causes : the diminution of those animals from which the Indians derive their support, and the pressure of the two great tribes, - the Ojibbeways and the Sioux, - to the north and west. So long ago as 1795, at the treaty of Greenville, the Pottawatomies notified the Miamis that they intended to settle upon the Wabash. They made no pretensions to the country, and the only excuse for the intended aggression was that they were tired of eating fish and wanted meat"* And come they did. They bore down upon their less populous neighbors, the Miamis, and occupied a large portion of their territory, impudently and by sheer force of numbers, rather than by force of arms. They established numerous villages upon the north and west bank of the Wabash and its tributaries flowing in from that side of the stream above the Vermilion. They, with the Sacs, Foxes and Kickapoos, drove the Illinois into the villages about Kaskaskia, and portioned the conquested territory among themselves. By other tribes they were called squatters, who justly claimed that the Pottawatomies never had any land of their own, and were mere intruders upon the prior rights of others. They were foremost at all treaties where lands were to be ceded, and were clamorous for a lion's share of presents and annuities, particularly where these last were the price given for the sale of others' lands rather than their own.f Between the years 1789 and 1837 the Pottawatomies, by themselves, or in connection with other tribes, made no less than thirty-eight treaties with the United States, all of which, - excepting two or three which were treaties of peace only, - were for cessions of lands claimed wholly by the Pottawatomies, or in common with other tribes. These cessions embraced territory extending from the Mississippi eastward to Cleveland, Ohio, and reaching over the entire valleys of the Illinois, the Wabash, the Maumee and their tributaries.^: few miles north of Momence, at a point of timber still known as Yellow Head Point; She-mar-gar, or the Soldier's Village, at the mouth of Soldier Creek, that runs through Kankakee City, and the village of "Little Rock " or Shaw-waw-nas-see, at the mouth of Rock Creek, a few miles below Kankakee City.* Besides these, the Pottawatomies had villages farther down the Illinois, particularly the great town of Como, Gumo, or Gumbo as the pioneers called it, at the upper end of Peoria Lake. They had other towns on the Milwaukee River, Wisconsin. On the St. Joseph, near Niles, was the village of To-pen-ne-bee, the great hereditary chief of the Pottawatomie nation ; higher up, near the present village of White Pigeon, was situated Wap-pe-me-mds, or White Pigeon's town. Westward of Fort Wayne, Indiana, nine miles, was Mus-lcvja-wa-sepe-otan, ' ; the town of old Red Wood creek," where resided the band of the distinguished warrior and orator of the Pottawatomies, Metea, whose name in their language signifies kiss me.

Finally, the renowned Kesis, or the sun, the old friend of General Hamtrauck and the Americans, in a speech to General Wayne at the treaty of Greenville in 1795, said that his milage "was a day's walk below the Wea towns on the Wabash," referring, doubtless, to the mixed Pottawatomie and Kickapoo town which stood 011 the site of the old Shelby farm, on the north bank of the Vermilion, a short distance above its mouth. \

The positions of several of the principal Pottawatomie villages have been given for the purpose of showing the area of country over which this people extended themselves. As late as 1823 their hunting grounds appeared to have been "bounded on the north by the St. Joseph (which on the east side of Lake Michigan separated them from the Ottawas) and the Milwacke,^: which, on the west side of the lake, divided them from the Meiiornonees. They spread to the south along the Illinois River about two hundred miles ; to the west

* The location of these three villages of Pottawatomies is fixed by the surveys of reservations to Mine-maung, Shemargar and Shaw-waw-nas-see respectively, secured to them by the second article of a treaty concluded at Camp Tippecanoe, near Logansport, Indiana, on the 20th of October, 1832, between the United States and the chiefs and head men of the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians of the prairie and of the Kankakee. The reservations were surveyed in the presence of the Indians concerned and General Tipton, agent on the part of the United States, in the month of May, 1834, by Major Dan W. Beckwith, surveyor. The reservations were so surveyed as to include the several villages we have named, as appears from the manuscript volumes of the surveys in possession of the author.

t Journal of the Proceedings at the Treaty of Greenville: American State Papers on Indian Affairs, vol. 1, p. 580. The author has authorities and manuscripts from which the location of Kesis1 band at the mouth of the Vermilion may be quite confidently affirmed.

their grounds extended as far as Rock River, and the Mequin or Spoon River of the Illinois ; to the east they probably seldom passed beyond the Wabash."* After the Kickapoos and Pottawatomies had established themselves in the valley of the Wabash,. it was mutually agreed between them and the Miamis that the river should be the dividing line, - the Pottawatomies and Kickapoos to occupy the west, and the Miamis to remain undisturbed on the east or south side of the stream. It was a hard bargain for the Miamis, who were unable to maintain their rights, f

The Pottawatomies were among the last to leave their possessions. in Illinois and Indiana, and it was the people of this tribe with whom the first settlers came principally in contact. Their hostility ceased at the close of the war of 1812. After this their intercourse with the whites was uniformly friendly, and they bore the many impositions and petty grievances which were put upon them by not a few of their unprincipled and unfeeling white neighbors with a forbearance that should have excited public sympathy.

The Pottawatomies owned extensive tracts of land on the Wabash, between the mouth of Pine Creek, in Warren county, and the Fort Wayne portage, which had been reserved to them by the terms of their several treaties with the United States. They held like claims upon the Tippecanoe and other westward tributaries of the Wabash, and elsewhere in northwestern Indiana, eastern Illinois and southern Michigan. These reservations are now covered by some of the finest farms in the states named. The treaties by which such reservations were granted generally contained a clause that debarred the owner from alienating them without having first secured the sanction of the President of the United States. This restriction was designed to prevent unprincipled persons from overreaching the Indian, who, at best, had only a vague idea of the fee simple title to, and value of, real estate. It afforded little security, however, against the wiles of the unscrupulous, and whenever the Indian could be induced by the arts of his ' ' White Brother ' ' to put his name to an instrument, the purport of which, in many instances, he did not at all understand as forever conveying away his possessions, the ratifying signature of the President followed as a matter of department routine. The greater part of the Pottawatomie reservations was retroceded to the United States in exchange either for annuities or for lands west of the Mississippi, and the title disposed of in this way.

The Exodus

The final emigration of the Pottawatomies from the Wabash, under charge of Col. Pepper and Gen. Tipton, of Indiana, took place in the summer of 1838. Many are yet living who witnessed the sad exodus. The late Sanford Cox has recorded his impressions of this event in the valuable little book which he published.* '; Hearing that this large emigration, numbering nearly a thousand of all ages and sexes, would pass within eight or nine miles west of La Fayette, a few of us procured horses and rode over to see the retiring band, as they reluctantly wended their way toward the setting sun. It was, indeed, a mournful spectacle to see these children of the forest slowly retiring from the homes of their childhood, where were not only the graves of their loved ancestors but many endearing scenes to which their memories would ever recur as sunny spots along their pathway through the wilderness. They felt that they were bidding a last farewell to the hills, the valleys and the streams of their infancy : the more exciting hunting grounds of their advanced youth ; the stern and bloody battle-fields on which, in riper manhood, they had received wounds, and where many of their friends and loved relatives had fallen, covered with gore and with glory. All these they were leaving behind, to be desecrated by the plowshare of the white man. As they cast mournful glances back toward these loving scenes that were rapidly fading in the distance, tears fell from the cheek of the downcast warrior, - old men trembled, matrons wept, the swarthy maiden's cheek turned pale, and sighs and half-suppressed sobs escaped from the motley groups, as they passed along, some on foot, some on horseback, and others in wagons, sad as a funeral procession. I saw several of the aged warriors glancing upward to the sky as if invoking aid from the spirits of their departed sires, who were looking down upon them with pity from the clouds, or as if they were calling upon the great spirit to redress the wrongs of the red man, whose broken bow had fallen from his hand. Ever and anon one of the throng would strike off from the procession into the woods and retrace his steps back to the old encampments on the Wabash, Ell River, or the Tippecanoe, declaring that he would die there rather than be banished from his country. Thus would scores leave the main party at different points on the journey and return to their former homes ; and it was several years before they could be induced to join their countrymen west of the Mississippi."

commissary department was wretchedly supplied. The Indians begged for food at the houses of the citizens. Others, in their extremity, killed rats at the old mill on the North Fork and ate them to appease their hunger. Without tents or other shelter, many of them, with young babes in their arms, walked on foot, as there was no adequate means of conveyance for the weak, the aged or infirm. Thus the mournful procession passed across the state of Illinois.

The St. Joseph band were removed westward the same year. So strong was their attachment to southern Michigan and northern Indiana, that the Federal government invoked the aid of troops to coerce their removal. The soldiers surrounded them, and, as prisoners of war, compelled them to leave. At South Bend, Indiana, was the village of Chichipe Outipe. The town was on a rising ground near four small lakes, and contained ten or twelve hundred christianized Pottawatomies. Benjamin M. Petit, the Catholic missionary in charge at Po-ke-ganns village on the St. Joseph, asked Bishop Brute for leave to accompany the Indians, but the prelate withheld his consent, not deeming it proper to give even an implied indorsement of the cruel act of the government. But being himself on their route, he afterward consented. The power of religion then appeared. Amid their sad march he confirmed several, while hymns and prayers, chanted in Ottawa, echoed for the last time around their lakes. Sick and well were carried off alike. After giving all his Episcopal blessing, Bishop Brute proceeded with Petit to the tents of the sick, where they baptized one and confirmed another, both of whom expired soon after. The march was resumed. The men, women and elder children, urged on by the soldiers in their rear, were followed with the wagons bearing the sick and dying, the mothers, little children and property. Thus they proceeded through the country, turbulent at that time on account of the Mormon war, to the Osage River, Missouri, where Mr. Petit confided the wretched exiles to the care of the Jesuit Father J. Hoecken."x"

In the year 1846 the different bands of Pottawatomies united on the west side of the Mississippi. A general treaty was made, in which the following clause occurs: "Whereas, the various bands of the Pottawatornie Indians, knowrn as the Chippeways, Ottawas and Pottawatomies, the Pottawatomies of the Prairie, the Pottawatomies of the Wabash, and the Pottawatomies of Indiana, have, subsequent to the year 1820, entered into separate and distinct treaties with the

United States, by which they have been separated and located in different countries, and difficulties have arisen as to the proper distributions of the stipulations under various treaties, and being the same people by kindred, by feeling and by language, and having in former periods lived on and owned their lands in common, and being desirous to unite in one common country and again become one people and receive their annuities and other benefits in common, and to abolish all minor distinctions of bands by which they have heretofore been divided, and are anxious to be known as the POTTAWATOMIE NATION, thereby reinstating the national character ; and whereas, the United States are also anxious to restore and concentrate said tribes to a state so desirable and necessary for the happiness of their people, as well as to enable the government to arrange and manage its intercourse with them ; now, therefore, the United States and said Indians do hereby agree that said people shall hereafter be known as a nation, to be called the POTTAWATOMIE NATION."

Pursuant to the terms of this treaty, the Pottawatomies received $850,000, in consideration of which they released all lands owned by them within the limits of the territory of Iowa and on the Osage River in Missouri, or in any state or place whatsoever. Eightyseven thousand dollars of the purchase money coming to them was paid, by cession from the United States, of 576,000 acres of land lying on both sides of the Kansas River. The tract embraces the finest body of land within the present state of Kansas, and Topeka, the state capital, has since been located nearly in the center of the reservation. While the territory was going through the process of organization, adventurers trespassed upon the lands of the Pottawatomies, sold them whisky, and spread demoralization among them. The squatters who intruded upon the farmer-Indians killed their stock and burned some of their habitations, all of which was borne without retaliation. Notwithstanding the old habendum clause inserted in Indian treaties (as a mere matter of form, as may be inferred from the little regard paid to it) that these lands should inure to Pottawatomies, "their heirs and assigns forever," the squatter sovereigns wanted them, and resorted to all the well-known methods. in vogue on the border to make it unpleasant for the Indians, who were progressing with assured success from barbarism to the ways of civilized society. The usual result of dismemberment of the reserve followed. The farmer-Indians, who so desired, had their portions of the reserve set off in severalty ; the uncivilized members of the tribe had their proportion set off in common. These last, which

We gather from the several reports of the commissioners on Indian affairs that, in 1863, the tribe numbered 2,274, inclusive of men, women and children, which was an alarming decrease since the census of 1854. The diminution was caused, probably, aside from the casualties of death, by some having returned to their former homes east of the Missouri, while many of the young and wild men of the tribe went to the buffalo grounds to enjoy the exciting and unrestrained freedom of the chase. The farmers raised 3,720 bushels of wheat, 45,000 of corn, 1,200 of oats and 1,000 tons of hay, and had 1,200 horses, 1,000 cattle and 2,000 hogs, as appears from the official report for 1863.

The Catholic school at St. Mary's enumerated an average of ninety-five boys and seventy-five girls in 1863, and in 1866 the total number was two hundred and forty scholars. Of his pupils the superintendent says: "They not only spell, read, write and cipher, but successfully master the various branches of geography, history, hook-keeping, grammar, philosophy, logic, geometry and astronomy. Besides this, they are so docile, so willing to improve, that between school-hours they employ their time, with pleasure, in learning whatever handiwork may be assigned to them ; and they particularly desire to become good farmers." The girls, in addition to their studies, are "trained to whatever is deemed useful to good housekeepers and accomplished mothers."

The Pottawatomies attested their fidelity to the government by the volunteering of seventy-five of their young men in the "army of the Union."

In 1867, out of a population of 2,400, 1,400 elected to become citizens of the United States, under an enabling act passed by congress. Of those who became citizens, some did well, others soon .squandered their lands and joined the wild band. There are still .a few left in Michigan, while about one hundred and eighty remain in Wisconsin.