POTAWATOMI

POTAWATOMI. Closely allied with the Ottawas and Ojibwes, the Potawatomis occupied a broad homeland; from southern Wisconsin it stretched across northern Illinois, northern Indiana, and southern Michigan, to Detroit. From the seventeenth century onward, the Potawatomis were close allies of the French, and of ten assisted them in their colonial wars with the British. During the American Revolution, the easternmost Potawatomi bands supported the British, while Potawatomis from Wisconsin and Illinois were neutral or assisted the Americans. In the post-Revolutionary period, Potawatomis joined the Indian coalition that resisted the American occupation of Ohio and participated in the border warfare of the 1790s. Many Potawatomis later became followers of Tecumseh and the Shawnee Prophet and fought with the British during the War of 1812.

After the War of 1812, many Potawatomis, both men and women, were prosperous traders in the Midwest. During the 1830s, part of the tribe was removed to Iowa and Kansas, and in the decade that followed, consolidated on a reservation near Topeka, Kansas. After the Civil War, the Citizen Band moved to Oklahoma, where they maintained tribal offices in Shawnee. The Prairie Band, a more traditional community, continues to occupy a reservation near in Mayetta, Kansas. Since 1913, the Forest Band has resided on a reservation in Forest County, Wisconsin. Other Potawatomis maintain reservation communities in Michigan and southern Ontario.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Clifton, James. The Prairie People: Continuity and Change in Potawatomi Indian Culture, 1665–1965. Lawrence: The Regents Press of Kansas, 1977.

Edmunds, R. David. The Potawatomis: Keepers of the Fire. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.

———. Kinsmen through Time: An Annotated Bibliography of Potawatomis History. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1987.

Sleeper-Smith, Susan. Indian Woman and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounters in the Western Great Lakes. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001.

R. DavidEdmunds

See alsoPottawatomie Massacre; Tribes: Prairie; Wars with Indian Nations, Colonial Era to 1783; Wars with Indian Nations, Early Nineteenth Century (1783–1840).

Potawatomi Algonquian-speaking Native Americans. Originally united with the Ottawa and the Ojibwa, these semi-sedentary hunter-farmers were driven by the Sioux se from Wisconsin, migrating as far as Indiana before being driven w by white settlers. They were eventually settled on reservations in Oklahoma, Kansas, Michigan and Wisconsin, where they now number about 2,000.