The Treaty of Yellow River, 1836

The Treaty of Yellow River, signed in 1836 between the U.S. government and members of the Potawatomi nation, sold lands around the Yellow River in northern Indiana. This treaty is especially contentious as there was no unanimous decision amongst the Potawatomi to sign it. A total of 17 Potawatomi Chiefs refused to sign the treaty. The Potawatomi Chief Menominee was the most well-known among them.

The U.S. government claimed that those who did sign represented the whole of the Potawatomi nation. Therefore, all lands had legally been sold. This practice would lead to many Native nations, tribes, and villages being driven from their homes because of treaties signed by others in their names. In some cases, Native peoples were brutally forced off their lands. The Potawatomi Trail of Death was the forcible removal of the last members of the Potawatomi nation from Indiana in 1838. This included Chief Menominee and his followers who had resisted the Treaty of Yellow River for nearly 2 years. The forced journey would start in northern Indiana and go roughly 660 miles to eastern Kansas through what is now four separate states. In August of 1838 a militia would surprise and burn the Potawatomi village at Twin Lakes. The militia gathered 859 Potawatomi people to send west to Kansas. They walked approximately 60 days, marching 15 – 20 miles a day. Those who could not keep up died from exhaustion in the hot and dry weather. The journey killed over 40 people, most of them children unable to survive the harsh conditions on the road.