Forest County Potawatomi Cultural Center And Museum

History:

In the beginning there were three brothers searching for new hunting grounds. They had left their former homeland along the shores of the Great Salt Water (Atlantic Ocean). Near at what is today known as Sault Ste. Marie, the three brothers built a new village. Here they enjoyed the clear water and the abundance of fish and game. In their birch bark canoes they traveled on countless rivers and lakes, and established an extensive trade network with other people who also spoke the Algonquian language. Soon, the new village prospered. Its inhabitants called themselves Neshnabek, meaning “True or Original People”.

After a while, the village had become too big. The three brothers had to find new places for their people. The oldest brother, being the Chippewa (Ojibwe), the Keeper of the Faith, moved to the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior. The middle brother, the Ottawa (Odawa), the Keeper of the Trade, went to Manitoulin Island on Lake Huron. And the youngest brother, the Potawatomi (Bodwe’wadmi), the Keeper of the Fire, found his new home along the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan. In honor of the close brotherhood of the three brothers these three tribes later formed the “Council of the Three Fires” or “Three Fires Confederacy”.

Encounters with the White Man

In the summer of 1634, the Potawatomi had their first encounter with people they had never seen before. A French trader named Jean Nicolet appeared on the shores of Red Banks near Green Bay. This strange looking man with hair in his face, dressed in a Chinese damask robe, stepped onto the shore, fired his two pistols which sounded like thunder, and asked for a waterway to China. The Potawatomi warriors were more impressed of the trade articles Nicolet had brought from France. Iron kettles, beads, calico, and mirrors quickly convinced the Potawatomi leaders of the importance of a strong alliance with Nouvelle France, an alliance they would never brake.

Becoming important middlemen of the European and Indian trade in the Western Great Lakes, the Potawatomi prospered again. Many new villages were built, so that by the end of the 18th century the Potawatomi occupied most of what is now lower Michigan, northwestern Ohio, north central Indiana, northern Illinois and eastern Wisconsin. To this day, many towns in Wisconsin along the shores of Lake Michigan bear the names of what were once Potawatomi villages: Algoma, Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Sheboygan, Waukesha, Mequon, Wauwatosa, Mukwanago, and Milwaukee, to name only a few. Chicago was another principle village. The name Chicago itself is derived from the Potawatomi word “She ga goy nak”, meaning “place of the skunk” or “place of the onions”. One might translate Chicago simply as “Skunk Town”.

But like many other tribes, the Potawatomi not only traded European goods: diseases, wars, and the never ending demand for tribal land, all took their devastating toll. Unknown epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and measles wiped out whole villages. Colonial conflicts led the Potawatomi into war alliances with the newly established colonies of the French, Spanish, and British immigrants. Many Potawatomi warriors fought in distant colonial wars, being far away to subsist their own families. As a result starvation became common in Potawatomi villages.

Treaties and Removal

With the end of the colonial wars and the founding of the United States of America, millions of European settlers began pouring into the homelands of the Potawatomi. As early as 1789, the United States Government pressured Potawatomi leaders into a series of 43 subsequent treaties, resulting in the loss of millions of acres. Many treaties were signed only by local band leaders who met the desires of the US-commissioners, or, as one scholar put it, the treaties were accomplished with the help of “Subagent Ardent Spirits, Colonel John Silver, and the Reverend Utmost Chicanery”. Alcohol became a severe threat to the Potawatomi People.

The infamous Treaty of Chicago, signed on September 26, 1833, represents the peak of the treaty era for the Potawatomi. Several thousand Potawatomi lost their homes. Within three years, they were forced to move west to Iowa and Missouri. The “Removal Era” affected all Potawatomi. During this time, up to 15,000 Potawatomi were either forced West, or tried to escape to their former British allies in Upper Canada. The most atrocious of these forced removals was in 1838 of Chief Menominee’s band of northern Indiana. Tribal accounts indicate that the warriors were put into leg irons and chains, crammed into wagons and were not given food or water until the end of each day’s walk. Burial accounts were detailed for almost every other day. This removal became known as “The Potawatomi Trail of Death” that began in Twin Lakes, Indiana and ended in Osawatomie, Kansas. Only a few years later, the idea of an “Indian Territory” again forced the Potawatomi and many other tribes to leave their villages. This time the government’s intent was to move all Potawatomi to Kansas and Oklahoma.

The Straying Bands of Potawatomi

After the last removal in the year of 1851, there were still about 1,500 Potawatomi left in Wisconsin. They didn’t want to migrate into the “Indian Territory”, or the “Great Desert”, leaving behind their homeland and their ancestors graves. For nearly three generations, small groups, families, and individuals of the Potawatomi Nation broke off from the main tribe and sought a refuge in the dense forests of North central Wisconsin. They became known as the “Straying Bands of Potawatomi”. These bands avoided any further contact with the White Man, fearing every day to be rounded up and to be removed West. Our ancestors became squatters in their own land.

The Forest County Potawatomi

Always avoiding the ever advancing settlement frontier, the straying bands of the Wisconsin Potawatomi retreated further and further into the Northwoods. Finally, during the late 1880’s, there seemed to be light at the end of the tunnel. A Norwegian Lutheran missionary named Erik O. Morstad from the Bethany Indian Mission School near Wittenberg in Shawano County, managed to help some Potawatomi families to purchase private homesteads in Forest County under the “Indian Homestead Act of July 4, 1884”. It was cut-over land that had been already extensively ravaged by logging companies. In the mid 1890’s, the first Potawatomi families found new homes in Northeast Wisconsin.

Almost twenty years later, in 1913, the Wisconsin Potawatomi received a reservation in Forest County. The land for the “Forest County Potawatomi” was purchased by treaty money long withheld by the government. In their effort to “civilize” and to acculturate the Potawatomi into the White Man’s way of life, the government divided the approximately 12,000 acres of land into a checkerboard reservation. Nevertheless, as word spread that land was available, the People started coming in from all directions to finally settle down on our new own land bases near Wabeno, Blackwell, and Stone Lake.

In 1934, the government passed the “Wheeler-Howard Act”, or “Indian Reorganization Act”. The Act specified that in order to be recognized as tribal governments Native American tribes would have to give up their traditional leadership and organize a majority elected leadership. It also mandated that the land would be held in trust status, in perpetuity (or forever). In 1936, the Potawatomi organized under this act, and one year later accepted their own constitution. The formerly straying bands of the Wisconsin Potawatomi finally became a federal recognized tribe, the Forest County Potawatomi Community.

“Etso nangot oygo” (For Each Other)

Today, we are a People proud of our    accomplishments. In recent years, revenues from gaming and other business ventures moved us back to self-reliance and prosperity. The Forest County Potawatomi Community has entered the 21th century with new strength and confidence. On the reservation, we have made a commitment to ensure better health care, education, housing and service to all our members.

A living testament to our beliefs and values, the Cultural Center and Museum, which was initiated in 1998 and completed in time for a Grand Opening in 2002, is the place where our culture can be  experienced by those who visit here. Clearly, this is our time – deeply rooted in a treasured history, tempered by struggles and sorrow, and lighted by our belief in ourselves and in our future.We are the Forest County Potawatomi, the Keepers of the Fire.Today, the Fire still burns.