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Native American Heritage 2021: Covers the War of 1812, treaties, and the forced removal of Native Americans from the Chicago area

This is an 1899 map showing Indian Land cessions in Illinois. The Indian Boundary lines established in 1816 are shown as the green-shaded land marked (by RHS) with the red box. The Blue Island Ridge is indicated by the red arrow (added by RHS), showing that this land was included in the area indicated for settlers. This made it official that the Ridge area was slated for development by white settlers and was no longer the land of the Native Americans. The rest of the Chicago area came under the control of the U.S. government with the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, signed by the Council of Three Fires, when the Native Americans agreed to give up the land and move west of the Mississippi River.
Black Hawk (Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak) (1767-1838) (painting by George Catlin, 1832) was a leader of the Sauk people. He was against the encroachment of the U.S. into Native American lands and led raids against settlements. In 1832, he led a band into the Illinois territory, and assuming hostile intent, the U.S. government fired upon the band. What became known as the “Black Hawk War” ended in the defeat of the Native Americans and led to the 1833 Treaty of Chicago. Taken into custody by the U.S., he was shown on a tour of the Eastern U.S. before being released. He told his biography to a newspaper reporter in 1833, and this became the first Native American biography to be published in the U.S. It is available to read online from several sources. The Chicago Treaty of 1833 resulted in Native Americans leaving the Chicago area.
“The Last Council of the Pottawatomies, 1833”: This painting by Lawrence C. Earle was part of a mural collection that hung in the banking room of The Central Trust Company on East Monroe Street, completed in 1902. The building was torn down and the mural is now in the collection of the Chicago History Museum. The painting represents the Potawatomi meeting to deal with the 1833 Treaty of Chicago.

The Ridge Historical Society

Native Americans and the Blue Island Ridge – Part 6: More Wars and More Treaties

By Carol Flynn

The War of 1812 saw the beginning of the end of the Native American presence in Chicago. After U.S. military and settlers were killed, and Fort Dearborn was burned down, by Potawatomi warriors in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the U.S. government became determined to remove Indians from the area to allow further settlement to go on unimpeded. “Chicago” was strategically located for transportation and trade, and the land surrounding it was rich for farmland.

Fort Dearborn was rebuilt in 1816. In the Treaty of St. Louis signed in 1816, the Council of Three Fires (the Ojibwa, Odawa, and Potawatomi, although only the Potawatomi were living in the Chicago area) gave up all claims to a 20-mile strip of land that included the Chicago Portage connecting Lake Michigan to the Illinois River. The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal is on this land now.

“Indian boundary lines” which started at the lake and ran southwest were established on either side of this strip of land. The deal with the Indians was that white settlers were permitted to settle safely within the lines. The southern line ran just below the southern tip of the Blue Island Ridge, placing the lands of the Ridge communities, that is, today’s communities of Beverly Hills, Morgan Park, Washington Heights, and Mount Greenwood, and the City of Blue Island, within the settlers’ territory.

Although the “Illinois Territory” was first claimed for the developing U.S. during the Revolutionary War, this made it official that the Blue Island Ridge was under the control of the U.S. government, slated for settlement by U.S. citizens, and was no longer under the control of Native Americans.

In 1821, the first Treaty of Chicago was signed by the U.S. government and the Council of Three Fires. This affected the Chicago area because among the land turned over to the U.S. government was an easement between Detroit and Chicago around the southern coast of Lake Michigan.

The Black Hawk War occurred in 1832. Black Hawk, a leader of the Sauk people, led a group of Sauk, Fox and Kickapoo into the Illinois Territory from Iowa. Their motives were assumed to be hostile, and the U.S. military opened fire on a delegation of the group, inciting the “war.” Most of the Potawatomi people did their best to avoid the conflict. Some other tribes took sides for or against the U.S. The Native Americans were defeated.

One notable fact from the Black Hawk War was that Abraham Lincoln served in the U.S. military at this time, stationed in Wisconsin, but he never saw combat.

The Black Hawk War culminated in the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, in which the U.S. government took over total control of certain Native American lands west of Lake Michigan, including the Chicago area. The Potawatomi received promises of cash payments and tracts of land west of the Mississippi River.

In 1835, five-hundred Potawatomi warriors gathered in full dress and danced the last recorded war dance in the Chicago area. The majority of the Indians left the area after that. Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837.

The purpose of these first six installments of this series was to give a very brief historical background as context for the history of Native Americans on the Ridge. We will now turn our attention to the Native Americans who lived on and around the Blue Island Ridge up to the 1830s.