Potawatomi

• CATEGORY: Tribe
• CULTURE AREA: Northeast
• LANGUAGE GROUP: Algonquian
• PRIMARY LOCATION: Oklahoma, Kansas, Wisconsin
• POPULATION SIZE: 38,000 (2024 Potawatomi Nation); 1,400 (Forest County Potawatomi); 1,355 in Canada (2021 Statistics Canada)

The Potawatomi, an Indigenous group of the Algonquian language family, originally came from north of Lake Superior. About 1500 Common Era (CE), they migrated south to the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, where they built a dozen villages along the St. Joseph River.

Traditional Lifeways

The Potawatomi hunted deer, elk, buffalo, and small game, fished, and gathered berries and nuts. They also planted and harvested corn and squash. Women worked the crops while the men hunted. The Potawatomi moved their villages every ten to twelve years when the soil became exhausted. The name of the Indigenous peoples resulted from a misunderstanding by Jean Nicolet, the French fur trapper and explorer who first made contact with the Potawatomi in 1634. He asked his Huron guide, “Who are these people?” The guide misunderstood and answered, “They are making fire,” which sounded like “pota wa tomi” to the Frenchman. They actually called themselves “Neshnabek,” meaning “the true people,” but the other name stuck.

Traditional Potawatomi religion stressed the power of Wiske, the Master of All Life. Wiske had a twin brother, Chipiyapos, the Destroyer, but the gods looked so much alike people could tell the difference between them only with great difficulty. Potawatomi children began being taught about the difference between good and evil at age twelve when they went on “vision quests” in the wilderness. Here they walked alone, naked, without food or drink, praying and meditating. If they were purified by their suffering, a guardian spirit (manitou) would appear to them and lead them to safety. The manitou would protect the youth for the rest of his life.

Post-Contact Life

In 1641, the first Catholic missionaries appeared and set up a mission at St. Joseph, Michigan, though they met with little success in converting Indigenous peoples to Christianity. In the 1650s, the Iroquois of New York attacked all other Indigenous nations in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, seeking to expand their control of the fur trade. They defeated the Potawatomi, who ended up in northern Wisconsin along Green Bay.

From their new homeland, the Potawatomi became involved again in the fur trade, mainly with the French. Many French traders married Indigenous women, but the Potawatomi considered children of mixed marriages (called Brûlés—burned ones—by the Indigenous people and Métis—mixed people—by the French) aliens and refused to let them live in their villages. Full-bloods lived in clans, which included the living, the dead, and the not-yet-born family members.

In the French and Indian War (1754–63), the Potawatomi attacked British forces as far east as New York and Virginia. In 1755, they acquired horses for the first time, and the horse quickly replaced birchbark canoes as their major mode of transportation. In 1763, Potawatomi warriors joined in Pontiac’s resistance against the British, but the Ottawa chief’s rebellion failed, and he signed a humiliating peace treaty.

Then, in 1794, the American army defeated another Potawatomi force at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, and the Potawatomi gave up a large amount of land in Ohio and Indiana. In 1807, they joined Tecumseh in his war to unite all Indians and expel Whites from their old homelands, but this fight also ended in failure. As the fur trade declined, Indigenous leaders found the sale of land to Whites at very low prices one method of avoiding absolute poverty. In 1831, under the terms of the Indian Removal Act, the Potawatomi agreed to resettle in Kansas, though only about half of the nation’s 2,700 members actually moved. The others remained in the East and came under state authority, chiefly in Michigan and, later, Wisconsin.

After the Civil War, the “strolling Potawatomis” of northern Wisconsin, so-called because they were landless and frequently moved from place to place, moved onto the Menominee reservation. Here they became involved with the Strange Woman religion led by a Dakota who claimed she had a vision of Christ, who would soon return and restore his people to power and respect. If her followers would beat a giant drum and dance steadily for four days, the Whites would fall dead to the earth. This “Dream Dance” is still performed four times a year, but mainly as a tourist attraction. In the twentieth century, the Potawatomi in the United States (US) received their own reservation in Wisconsin, and they worked as migrant agricultural workers and basketmakers. The result was increasing poverty and despair. Only the legalization of bingo on Indigenous land offered any opportunity for economic growth; otherwise, jobs and opportunities proved very scarce.

Scattered by the Depression and by the mid-century government policy of termination, by the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, it became clear that language preservation and revitalization projects were necessary to conserve traditional Potawatomi culture and increase social cohesion and pride. In 1973, the Wisconsin Native American Languages Program relied on the knowledge of Indigenous speakers to create a curriculum for second-language learners and a standardized writing system that incorporates traditional Potawatomi pronunciation alongside the Latin alphabet. Yet, by 1996, only fifty-two fluent speakers remained. By the twenty-first century, courses and conferences, textbooks, and online resources became available, and they were devoted to learning and practicing the language.

In the twenty-first century, the Potawatomi can be found in Oklahoma, Kansas, Michigan, and Wisconsin in the US, and there are also populations of Potawatomi in Canada. Some bands of Potawatomi have achieved federal recognition as Indigenous nations, such as the Forest County Potawatomi and the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and others have not. Most distinct bands offer social services to their members, including housing, employment, education, and healthcare services. Many Potawatomi bands have experienced economic success through casinos, gaming, hotels, and other businesses. The Potawatomi make significant efforts to preserve their language, culture, and history and participate in environmental stewardship. 

Bibliography

Bishop, Charles A., and Zach Parrott. "Eastern Woodlands Indigenous Peoples in Canada." The Canadian Encyclopedia, 21 Dec. 2017. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/aboriginal-people-eastern-woodlands. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

Citizen Potawatomi Nation - People of the Place of the Fire, www.potawatomi.org. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

"Forest County Potawatomi." Potawatomi Casino Hotel, www.paysbig.com/business/forest-county-potawatomi. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

Loew, Patty. Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal. 2nd ed., State Historical Soc. of Wisconsin, 2013.

McMillan, Alan, and Eldon Yellowhorn. First Peoples in Canada. Douglas, 2004.

"Potawatomi." Milwaukee Public Museum, www.mpm.edu/content/wirp/ICW-56. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

"Potawatomi (Neshnabémwen)." Omniglot, 17 Oct. 2024, www.omniglot.com/writing/potawatomi.htm. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

Rhoades, Loren. "Citizen Potawatomi Tribe." The University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communications, www.ou.edu/gaylord/exiled-to-indian-country/content/citizen-potawatomi. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

"Tribal History." Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, www.pbpindiantribe.com/about/tribal-history. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

Wetzel, Christopher. Gathering the Potawatomi Nation: Revitalization and Identity. U of Oklahoma P, 2015.