Page 19 - Fur Trade program Curriculum

continued to raise small crops of corn, beans, and pumpkins, and to take fish from lakes
and streams and deer from the forests, but by 1750 they were dependent upon
European traders for muskets, gunpowder, metal instruments, and other trade goods
that once had been luxury items.

Many Potawatomis, particularly those living in northern Indiana and southern
Michigan (the Wabash band) continued to adopt white ways following the War of 1812
and a coterie of mixed bloods emerged as influential and wealthy traders. Yet as
American settlement flooded the upper Midwest the Potawatomis were forced to cede
much of their homeland, and between 1816 and 1832 they agreed to 12 major land
cessions, relinquishing most of their territory in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and
Wisconsin. In consequence, the federal government removed the tribe piecemeal, first
resettling tribespeople from Illinois and Wisconsin (the Prairie band) in northwestern
Missouri and western Iowa, then removing the Wabash band to the Osage River
Subagency from Kansas. In 1846 all the Potawatomis in the West were consolidated
on a new reservation along the Kansas River, just west of modern Topeka. Meanwhile,
Potawatomis who had fled removal gathered at Walpole Island, across from Detroit, or
scattered through the forests of northeastern Wisconsin. In addition, followers of Simon
Pokagon, an acculturated Roman Catholic leader, remained on their privately owned
lands near Niles, Michigan, while another smaller community continued to reside on the
Huron River in eastern Michigan.

In early times the Potawatomi made their clothing of tanned animal hides and furs.
The men wore moccasins, leggings, breechcloths, garters, leather shirts and sometimes
belts. On their heads they wore feathers, fur turbans, and roaches. They wore fur
robes and carried bandoleers over their shoulders. Clothing was decorated by painted
designs and dyed quillwork. Later, when trade goods were introduced, glass beads and
appliqué work decorated their clothing. Finger-woven sash, a muslin-like material, was
worn as a turban, across the shoulders, and around the waist as a belt. They carried
bags that resembled the sleeve of a woman’s ruffled blouse with a drawstring at the top.

Potawatomis hunted deer, elk, bear, beaver, muskrats, and probably all of the other
available animals, by means of bows and arrows, spears, snares, and traps. Fishing
was important too. Fish were caught with hook and line, nets, and spears. Hunting and
fishing were male occupations, whereas planting of crops and the women did
harvesting. Digging sticks and wooden hoes were the only agricultural implements.
The women also collected wild foods such as nuts, roots, berries and wild rice. Both
men and women, at least in later times, collected the sap from maple trees and
converted it into sugar. Equipment used consisted of wedges, wooden troughs, birch
bark buckets, wooden vessels and probably pottery.

The villages of the Ottawa and Potawatomi were occupied primarily in the
summertime. Dwellings were dome-shaped wigwams made of saplings covered with
mats and large bark-covered houses similar to those of the Huron. Circular palisades of
upright logs protected some villages. Ottawa and Potawatomi villages, unlike those of
the Hurons, were located along waterways navigable by canoes. The dome-shaped
wigwams were used not only in the villages but also in the winter hunting grounds.

The Potwatomi tribe was subdivided into a number of bands that possessed their
own territories and were politically independent of one another, although closely
connected by ties of clan, kinship and language.