POTAWATOMI
320
POTAWATOMI
Bigned and sealed, presented to, and accepted by, the
proper superior, those making it can not recede from,
nor ohango, it. The porson in whose fa\-our the pos-
tulation has been made must signify within a niontli
his wiUingness to accept the dignity offered.
L.irRESTius. InstUulioiies Juris Canonici (Freiburg, 1903); FERR.MU8, BMiolheca Canonica, VI (Rome, 1S90), s. v. Postulatio.
William H. W. Fanning.
Potawatomi Indians, an important tribe of Al- gonquin linguistic stock, closely related dialectically to the Ojibwa and (Mt:iw:i, and living when first known to the Frencli (about UVK)) on and about the islands at the mouth of Green Bay. Lake Michigan, having recently been driven from their liomes in the lower peninsula by the Iroquoian tribes living toward the east. .\t a later period and until their removal to the west (about 1835-40) they held both shores of Lake Michigan from about Manitowoc (44°) on the west around to about Grand River (43°) on the east, and southward to the Wab:\sh, comprising territory in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan, with some fifty villages, including those on the sites of Milwaukee, Chicago. South Bend (St. Joseph), and Grand Rapids. Much of this territory had been held earlier by the Illinois and Miami. According to tradition, which seems corroborated by linguistic evidence, the Potawatomi were originally one people with the Ojibwa and Ottawa, and derived their name, properly in plural form Potewatmik, "people of the fire place" or "fire-makers", from having moved oil to the southward and kindled a new fire, i. e. formed a separate government for themselves. The three trii)es have always been known as close confederates. It is very probable that the "Prairie Band" of Potawatomi, the Muskodensug of northern Illinois, are identical with the ancient Mascoutens, the so-called "Fire Nation".
The Potawatomi were first met by the adventurous French explorer Jean Xicolet, the fii-st white man in Wisconsin (1(534-5). In 1(541 they appear to have been present at the "feast of the dead" attended by the Jesuits Raymbaut and Jogues in the Huron coun- try. In 165S-9 the explorers Radisson and Groseil- liers, on their own invitation, spent the winter among them on Green Bay. They were occasional visitors at the mission of Saint-Esprit at La Point e Che- goimegon (now Bayfield, Wis.) on Lake Superior, founded by AUouez in 16(55, and in December, 1669, the same" devoted Jesuit pioneer established the mission of Saint Francis Xavier near the head of Green Bay, Wisconsin, for the neighbouring Potawa- tomi, Sank, Foxes, and \\'innebago, with visiting stations in their various villages. The war between the French and Iroquois, beginning about ten years later, gave temporary check to all the missions, and in 1687 the Green Bay mission was burned by the pagan Indians while the resident priest, Fr. Jean Enjahan, was absent with Denonville's troops. On his return the next year it was restored, and a second mission, St. Joseph, was established by AUouez for the same tribe, on the river of that name, near the present South Bend, Ind. This mission con- tinued with one long interruption until the removal of the tribe to the West, when the missionaries ac- companied the Indians and re-established work in the new field. PoUtical changes of administration, the rising struggle with England for control of the West, and a long war with the Foxes (1712—48) con- spired to discourage the mission work. In 1721 Charlevoix found the mission at Green Bay, then under Fr. J. B. Chardon, devoted chiefly to the Sank and Winnebago, while that on St. Joseph River was occupied jointly by Potawatomi and Miami. The suppression of the Jesuits in the French colonies in 1762 closed all their missions and for thirty years there was no priest west of Detroit, while the almost
continuous wars for forty years — French and Indian,
Pontiac's, the Revolution, and later to the Greenville
treaty in 1795 — almost wiped out all recollection
of Christian teaching. " Deprived of p;istors, con-
stantly in motion, mingling with war [larties of pagan
tribes and sharing in t heir superst it ious rit es, t hey soon
relapsed into many of the old customs of their race"
(Shea). The Potawatomi were a fighting race and
in the Fox war and the French and hulian war sided
actively with the French, continuing the struggle
under Pontiac against the Engli.sh initil 1765. On
the outbreak of the Revolution in 1775 they took
up arms for England against the Americans and
continued the war under Little Turtle and other
Iniiian leaders until compelled to join in the treaty
of Greenville in 1795 consequent upon Wayne's
decisive victory over the confederated tribes in the
preceding year. A part of them under Winamac
joined the English again under Tecumseh's leader-
ship in 1812, and made final treaty of peace in 1815.
Tlie Prairie Band, under their chief (iomo, held to
the American interest. By these wars they suffered
heavily and the close of the War of 1812 found them
prostrated, while the immediate influx of whisky
traders worked a wholesale demoralization, aggravated
by constant fear of final removal as their territories
were curtailed by repeated cessions under pressure.
In 1822 the first Protestant work in the tribe was begun by the Baptists at Carey mission near South Bend and continued until 1830 when it was dis- continued, in consequence of the inauguration of the removal policy, to be renewed shortly afterward among the immigrant Indians in Kansas. In the meantime, on formal request of the Ottawa chiefs to Congress (1823) for Jesuit missionaries, the old mis- sions had been re-established through the efforts of Bishop Reze of Detroit, that of St. Joseph being con- fided to the secular, Fr. Stephen Badin. The main pillar of this mission was the distinguished chief Pokagan, baptized by Rez6, and father of the still more noted Catholic chief and author, Simon Poka- gan (1830-99), to whose memory a monument has been erected in Jackson Park, Chicago. Fr. Badin was shortly succeeded by Fr. Desseille, who remained until his death in 1837 and was succeeded by Fr. Benjamin Petit. In the meantime, by successive treaties the Potawatomi territory had been st^eadily curtailed in the various states originally occupied by them and band after band, much against their will, transported to new homes in Iowa and Kansas, be- yond the Mississippi. Before the end of 1836 over sixteen hundred had been thus removed and others were on the road. Some eight hundred in Indiana, led by a chief who had steadily refused to sign away his lands, refused to go, and in September, 1838, were surrounded by the troops, while assembled at church, and driven out upon the long and weary foot journey to the West. On special request of the officer in charge, who dreaded an attempt to escape or re- sistance. Father Petit, who had already offered his services, was appointed to accompany them, which he did, traversing on foot with them the long way across Indiana, Illinois, and Mis.souri, until in Kansas he confided his suffering and diminished flock to the Jesuit Fr. J. Hoecken, and returned to St. Louis. A few refugees escaped to Canada and settled on Walpole Island in Lake St. Clair. Other bands were removed to the West as late as 1841, a few hundred still continuing to remain in their old coun- try. .\s early as 1836 Father Hoecken had re- established work among the immigrant tribes in Kansas, and before the end of that year the mission of Saint Mary, destined to become so well known, was founded by Frs. De Smet and Verreydt, assisted by Brother Mazelli. among the still heathen and obdurate prairie Potawatomi. It was soon afterward pl.aced in charge of Fr. Hoecken, under whom the mission
