Potawatomi Trail of Death

Common card · No. 377151

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) and ended on November 4, 1838, along the western bank of the Osage River, 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. Although the Potawatomi had ceded most of their lands in Indiana to the federal government under a series of treaties made between 1818 and 1832, Chief Menominee refused to sign the Treaty of Yellow River (1836) that would have relinquished the reserve granted to him in the Treaty of Tippecanoe (1832). When the US demanded that Menominee and his band at Twin Lakes leave their reserve, they refused. Indiana governor David Wallace authorized...

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