Potawatomi Trail of Death

Map of the trail route: The tribe traveled from Twin Lakes, Indiana, arriving in Osawatomie, Kansas two months later.

The Potawatomi Trail of Death was the forced removal by militia in 1838 of about 859 members of the Potawatomi nation from Indiana to reservation lands in what is now eastern Kansas. The march began at Twin Lakes, Indiana (Myers Lake and Cook Lake, near Plymouth, Indiana) on November 4, 1838, along the western bank of the Osage River, ending near present-day Osawatomie, Kansas. During the journey of approximately 660 miles (1,060 km) over 61 days, more than 40 people died, most of them children. It was the single largest Indian removal in Indiana history.

Quotes

• Our lands around Lake Michigan were wanted by settlers, so in long lines, surrounded by soldiers, we were marched at gunpoint along what became known as the Trail of Death. They took us to a new place, far from our lakes and forests. But someone wanted that land too, so the bedrolls were packed again, thinner this time. In the span of a single generation my ancestors were "removed" three times—Wisconsin to Kansas, points in between, and then to Oklahoma. I wonder if they looked back for a last glimpse of the lakes, glimmering like a mirage. Did they touch the trees in remembrance as they became fewer and fewer, until there was only grass? So much was scattered and left along that trail. Graves of half the people. Language. Knowledge. Names. My great-grandmother Sha-note, "wind blowing through," was renamed Charlotte. Names the soldiers or the missionaries could not pronounce were not permitted.
  • Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions. 16 September 2013. pp. 12-13. ISBN 978-1-57131-871-8. 

External links

• Forest County Potawatomi
• Match-e-be-nash-she-wish (Gun Lake) Band of Pottawatomi
• Citizen Potawatomi Nation
• Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation
• Trail of Death, Historical Marker Database
• Potawatomi Trail of Death Primary Sources
• Potawatomi Trail of Death Association
• Potawatomi History
• Potawatomi Web: Trail of Death map
• Keith Drury: Walking the Trail of Death
• Chief Menominee Memorial
• Trail of Death Podcast, Moment of Indiana History
• Entries from the journal of artist George Winter describing the Trail of Death

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