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Updated: June 9, 2025
On the 14th, the despondency of the garrison was for a while dispelled by the arrival of Captain Wells and fifteen friendly Miamies. Having heard at Fort Wayne of the error to evacuate Chicago, and knowing the hostile intentions of the Pottawatomies, he hastened thither in order to save, if possible, the little garrison from its doom.
The Sacs and Foxes, of the Mississippi; the Pottawatomies, Winnebagoes, and Chippewas of a hundred bands who fish in the great rivers and lakes of the West; the warlike Ottawas, who have carried the Algonquin tongue to the banks of Lake Erie, in short, all enemies of the Iroquois have pledged themselves to take the field whenever the Governor shall require the axe to be dug up and lifted against the English and the Five Nations.
This advice though given in great earnestness, was not sufficiently regarded by Captain Heald; who observed, that he should evacuate the fort, but having received orders to distribute the public property among the Indians, he did not feel justified in leaving it until he had collected the Pottawatomies in its vicinity, and made an equitable distribution among them.
The bands or tribes residing in Michigan are the Chippewas of Saginaw, Swan Creek, and Black River; the Ottawas and Chippewas; the Pottawatomies of Huron; and the L'Anse band of Chippewas. The Chippewas of Saginaw, Swan Creek, and Black River, numbering sixteen hundred and thirty, and the Ottawas and Chippewas, six thousand and thirty-nine, are indigenous to the country.
On the site of the present city of Chicago, a fort was erected in 1803. Feeling secure under this protection, several families built cabins and began to cultivate the ground in the vicinity. The large and powerful tribe of Pottawatomies occupied the neighboring country.
Parties of young men kept making inroads on the settlements, especially in Kentucky; not only did the Shawnees, Wyandots, Mingos, and Iroquois act thus, but they were even joined by bands of Ottawas, Pottawatomies, and Chippewas from the lakes, who thus attacked the white settlers long ere the latter had either the will or the chance to hurt them.
There are two schools for this tribe, having on the rolls two hundred and seventeen scholars, the average attendance being ninety. The stray bands of Winnebagoes, Chippewas, and Pottawatomies number about sixteen hundred.
These Indians, numbering six hundred and sixty-three, separated about thirty years ago from the main tribe, then located in Kansas, and settled in the Indian Territory, principally within the limits of the thirty miles square tract heretofore referred to in the remarks relative to the Pottawatomies, where they engaged in farming, and have since supported themselves without assistance from the government.
The United States have by recent treaties or legislative enactments admitted to citizenship the following Indians, In Kansas, Kickapoos, 12; Delawares, 20; Wyandots, 473; Pottawatomies, 1,604: in Dakota, Sioux, 250: in Minnesota, Winnebagoes, 159: in Wisconsin, Stockbridges, to a number not yet officially ascertained: in Michigan, Ottawas and Chippewas, 6,039: in the Indian Territory, Ottawas of Blanchard's Fork, 150.
They gathered to meet him at Cahokia, chiefs and warriors of every grade; among them were Ottawas and Chippewas, Pottawatomies, Sacs, and Foxes, and others belonging to tribes whose very names have perished. The straggling streets of the dismayed little town were thronged with many hundreds of dark-browed, sullen-looking savages, grotesque in look and terrible in possibility.
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