The RHS Facebook page is a rich archive of history-related posts by Carol Flynn, RHS Facebook admin and writer until mid-2025. Carol prolifically wrote a wide variety of meticulously researched local history articles for RHS. She continues to write for the Beverly Review and other media sources with articles particularly focused on local Ridge history.
2021
Native Americans and the Blue Island Ridge – Part 15Native American Stories and Artifacts on the Ridge
The known sites connected with Native Americans on and around the Blue Island Ridge as indicated on an 1804 map were covered in the last post.
Most of the Native Americans left the Chicago area in the 1830s. Some stayed, of course, and there were even exceptions to the treaties that allowed some chiefs and their groups to remain in certain locations. Some returned annually for a while to their summer home grounds. But they were no longer a dominant presence in the area.
The white settlers who followed the Native Americans recorded various versions of “history” and found artifacts. These are a few of the more interesting stories.
John H. Volp shared a number of stories about the Native Americans in the Ridge area in his book “The First Hundred Years – 1835 to 1935 – Historical Review of Blue Island – Illinois.”
He reported that the Native American villages and sites at the southern tip of the Ridge (called Blue Island and Wildwood to the immediate east, now a part of the City of Blue Island) were the site of a battle in 1769 between the Ottawa and Potawatomi against the Illinois Confederation. The story goes that the Illinois people were ultimately driven to the landmass that became known as Starved Rock, where they were surrounded and isolated, and most of them perished from starvation. This removed the Illinois people from the Chicago area. However, as much as the story of Starved Rock has appeared in Illinois historical lore, researchers today doubt its accuracy. The story has passed down through oral means but there is no other documentation to support it.
Local histories in the Ridge Historical Society collection include reports that early settlers found many Native American artifacts in the area. Postholes were reported being found in the 1840s at what is now the east side of Hale Avenue, between 104th and 105th Streets, and stone tools were found in the area.
The History of Cook County published by A. T. Andreas in 1884 includes this entry: “The neighborhood of Washington Heights also claims some archaeological importance. Since 1859 the members of the Barnard family alone have collected 36 flint arrow-heads, two battle axes, a spearhead, several pieces of ancient pottery, and other evidences of the former savage residents. The remnants of pottery were found in a small mound surrounded by large cobble-stones, and embraced, as it were, within the roots of a small oak tree which sprang up from the mound.”
The location and significance of this mound are not known.
One clarification of local folklore needs to be addressed, concerning the Hopkinson-Platt House at 108th and Drew Streets. The house was built in the 1870s, and Dr. Robert and Mrs. Harriet Platt moved into the house in the 1920s. Dr. Platt (1891-1964) was a geography professor at the University of Chicago, and Mrs. Platt (1899-1979) traveled with him, and also tended to the many foreign students and refugees they invited to live with them.
Mrs. Platt claimed an oak tree in the yard of the house was 800 years old and was the site of Native American councils. She called it the “Council Oak” and there is a plaque installed in the yard. The tree blew down in a storm in 1988.
Whether or not the tree was a “council oak” cannot be verified. That species of oak tree has only about a 200-year lifespan, 300 years at best, not 800 years. That means it was old enough to be growing at that spot during the time of Native Americans prior to 1833, but it would have been a younger tree, and there would have been older and bigger trees for use for council meetings.
The land included with that property has never been developed and excavation would be very interesting.
Native American sites are being excavated in the forest preserves surrounding Chicago, the only land that has not been totally lost to development. In the area of the Ridge, excavation was reportedly going on at an undisclosed location in the Joe Louis Golf Course, which is located in the Whistler Woods Forest Preserve, along the Calumet River, just southeast of the Ridge.
Next post: Captain Billy Caldwell aka Chief Sauganash
Native Americans and the Blue Island Ridge – Part 14Native American Sites Around the Blue Island Ridge
This is a continuation of the series on the historical presence of Native Americans on and around the Blue Island ridge. The purpose of the series is not only to educate the community but also to help those organizations developing Land Acknowledgement Statements.
At the time white settlers arrived on the Ridge, the land was primarily being used by the Potawatomi people. The land had been used before that by other tribes – the Miami, the Illinois Confederation, the Sauk, the Fox, and the Kickapoo.
There were documented Native American sites around the Blue Island Ridge. There were also stories about Native Americans in the area in oral and written histories.
A map from 1804, reproduced and updated in 1900, shows the early Native American trails and villages of the Chicago area, and surrounding counties. Washington Heights and Blue Island are delineated, and the Blue Island is outlined.
On the full map, the Blue Island Ridge area is marked by the black square. The legend of the map shows the symbols. The vast wetlands between the Ridge area and Lake Michigan are evident on the map.
On the close-up of the map, the northern tip of the Ridge, roughly 87th Street and Western Avenue, is identified as number 1. This land is now included in the Dan Ryan Forest Preserve of the Forest Preserves District of Cook County (FPDCC). An Indian camp and signal station are shown there. The Ridge area is the highest elevation in Chicago, about 60 feet higher than downtown Chicago. From here, the surrounding territory could be observed for many miles around, all the way to “downtown” where Fort Dearborn stood, 12 miles to the northeast.
There are no other designations on this map for an Indian establishment on the top of the Ridge. There is some mention of an early map that includes the word “manitou” on the top of the Ridge. In general, because there are many Native American groups with varied beliefs, the Indigenous Peoples believed in a Great Creator, and they interacted with the Creator through spirits called manitous. Each individual had a personal manitou, and there were also manitous that resided in natural objects, such as the sun, trees, and rocks, that helped everyone. It would be consistent that a unique table of land like the Blue Island Ridge housed a manitou.
The southern end of the Blue Island is designated as number 2, where there was a major Indian village on the Stony Creek. The creek at that location is now part of the Cal-Sag Channel. There is also a circle that shows there was an Indian mound there, which likely was a burial site.
The mound builders were actually in the historic period before the Pottawatomi so this shows it was a Native American site for a long time. Another old document mentioned Native American “cemeteries” in Blue Island and to the east, but reported they “vanished” with time. Mounds in the Calumet region in Indiana were destroyed for farmland and this likely happened here also.
A portage trail is shown as number 3 on the map. This ran across the top of the Ridge, an overland route connecting the waterways to the east to the Stony Creek. It ran along what is now about 103rd Street. Portages were used to carry canoes overland where there were dry gaps between waterways.
The Vincennes Trail is marked by number 4. The Vincennes Trace or Trail, a major trail originally formed by migrating buffalo that was well known and used by Native Americans and later by European traders and settlers, ran through Kentucky and Indiana, and into Illinois. It was named the Vincennes Trail by white traders because a major location on the trail was Vincennes, Indiana, a city founded by French fur traders on land inhabited for thousands of years by Indigenous People.
In Illinois, the trail ran south of the Blue Island Ridge, and a branch split off, heading north/south to/from the area which became known as Chicago. Parts of the original trail became Chicago’s State Street and Vincennes Avenue.
This branch that ran north/south to the Chicago area had two paths – one ran along the top of the Blue Island Ridge and a second path ran on the east side below the Ridge. A marker at 91st Street and South Pleasant Avenue indicates the original path, now lost, on top of the Ridge. The lower path eventually evolved into today’s Vincennes Avenue.
The southern Indian Boundary line mentioned previously, established in 1816, is number 5 on the map. There were two boundary lines – a north and a south one. The land in between the two lines defined the territory that could be used by settlers, and the land outside the boundary lines defined the territory that could be used by the Native Americans. The southern Indian Boundary Line was established running diagonally from the northeast to the southwest, passing just below the southern tip of the Ridge, thereby including the Ridge in the settlers’ territory. The land to the east and south of the line was for Native American use.
Next post: Other stories about the Native Americans on the Ridge.
History is made every day. Some of the stories we will remember from the COVID days are of the people who went out of their way to help others. Today we recognize the folks of Turpin Cares.
School Series – Profile 14Elizabeth “Bessie” Huntington Sutherland
The next person to be profiled in our series about people for whom Chicago Public Schools on the Ridge are named is Elizabeth “Bessie” Huntington Sutherland (1851 – 1924).
Bessie Sutherland was a very respected and forward-thinking leader in the education field.
She was born in 1851 on the Ridge. Her parents, Samuel and Maria Robinson Huntington, were part of the earliest Ridge pioneer families. Samuel was a farmer and kept stock and also became involved with the railroads, and served as sheriff of the City of Blue Island. Maria was reputed to have been an early teacher in Blue Island, making $1.00 per week for her efforts.
Around 1854, a two-room schoolhouse was built in Blue Island, and it is probable that Bessie attended this school as a child. She went on for training as a teacher at the Cook County Normal School, established in 1867. The name “normal school” was used for teacher preparation programs because they established teaching standards or “norms.” Bessie graduated from this school in 1869. This school eventually evolved into Chicago State University.
Bessie’s career as a teacher included the Blue Island school and the Hyde Park high school. She took graduate classes at the University of Chicago. She was a member of the National Education Association.
The Washington Heights public school started in 1874 and Bessie became principal there in 1883, the first woman to be named a principal in Cook County. In 1893, this school was renamed the Alice L. Barnard School, after another Ridge native who had become the first woman principal of a Chicago school.
A 1912 History of Education in Illinois reported that Bessie had three schools under her charge, nineteen teachers, and eight hundred students.
Bessie became a teacher during the “Progressive Era,” that time of significant reform. The field of education made great advances during this time, as the philosophy of learning changed from rote memorization to exploration and experimentation. Bessie surely knew two of the movement's leaders in Chicago, Francis W. Parker, who became head of the Cook County Normal School, and John Dewey, who established the University of Chicago Laboratory School.
An anecdote about Bessie illustrates the Progressive educator. While principal at the Barnard School, one day she heard that a camel had escaped from a traveling show and was freely roaming the local woods. She gathered the entire student body and led an impromptu field trip to the woods to observe the camel “in the wild” and share a lesson on animals of the world.
Bessie was a strong proponent of kindergarten, a unique program that developed in Europe separate from the traditional grade school model. This new model, which emphasized investigation and imagination, was just starting in U.S. schools in the late 1800s.
Bessie started a program at the Washington Heights School, and is quoted in a 1900 publication, Education in the United States, that when comparing siblings from families where the older children went through school before the kindergarten program was started, the younger siblings who had the advantage of kindergarten “were brighter in every way,” which she attributed to the “early wholesome awakening brought about by the training of the kindergarten.”
[RHS did an entire newsletter in the past on kindergarten and the pioneering educators in this area who lived on the Ridge, the Hofer family, and will run a series on this in the future.]
Bessie authored professional articles, including one on a county-wide spelling contest for the Journal on Rural Education. However, in a literature search, several articles about crime are attributed to her that were actually written by another E. H. Sutherland, Edwin H., a U.S. sociologist and criminologist.
During Bessie’s lifetime, women teachers were not allowed to marry if they wished to remain employed. It was believed that married women teachers would put their energies into their home and the classrooms would suffer.
Bessie put off marriage to David Sutherland until her 43rd birthday in 1894. Sutherland, seventeen years Bessie’s senior, was a real estate developer with considerable property on the south and west sides of Chicago. They made their home at 1638 West 103rd Street. The couple had no children, and David died in 1904. A favorite niece and her family made their home with Bessie.
Bessie kept her employment during her married years. She served as the “lady principal” of Barnard School for almost 40 years. She resigned in 1923, and died in 1924. She was buried in Mt. Greenwood Cemetery.
In 1925, the new school built at 101st and Leavitt Streets was named in her honor.
The Ridge Historical Society
School Series – Profile 13: Medgar Evers
Carol Flynn
As the new school year begins, we will continue to run profiles of the people for whom schools in the Ridge communities are named.
Medgar Wiley Evers (1925-1963) was a civil rights activist in Mississippi who worked to end segregation and expand opportunities for African Americans, including the enforcement of voting rights.
Evers was a World War II veteran who served in the segregated U.S. Army, rising to the rank of sergeant. His unit participated in the D-Day invasion of Europe.
Returning home, he was forced away at gunpoint when he tried to exercise his right to register to vote in Mississippi.
He attended Alcorn College on the G.I. Bill, majoring in business administration. He was an honor student and president of the junior class. He competed on the debate team, sang in the school choir, and participated in football and track.
He worked as an insurance agent under a man who was a leader in the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), a civil rights and pro-self-help organization. Involvement in the RCNL gave Evers crucial training in activism.
When his application to the University of Mississippi Law School was rejected due to a technicality, he approached the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for help. Impressed with the young man, the NAACP offered him a position as the organization’s first field secretary in the state. Evers accepted, opening an office in Jackson, and nearly doubled NAACP membership to 15,000 within three years.
As a field worker for the NAACP, one of his first assignments was to investigate the murder of Chicagoan Emmet Till, the 14-year-old African American boy kidnapped and murdered for flirting with a white woman in 1955 in Mississippi. Evers helped locate and protect witnesses.
In 1961, Evers was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $100 for speaking out against the sentence handed down to a young Black man who stole several bags of chicken feed. Evers appealed his own conviction all the way to the Mississippi Supreme Court, which surprisingly found in Evers’ favor. The court was lauded for “courageously deciding the case in accordance with the law of the land,” something that was recognized would not have happened even a few years before. The Chicago Tribune declared, “The time is not yet here but it is approaching when Negroes in the deep south can look with growing confidence to the state courts as well as the federal courts to equality before the law and protection of their rights as citizens.”
Evers was part of the movement to integrate the University of Mississippi in 1962, which led to President John F. Kennedy sending in 30,000 National Guardsmen to stop the riots that started when Blacks tried to register for classes.
In 1963, Evers was elected to the board of the American Veterans Committee (AVC). He was scheduled to receive the group’s meritorious achievement award at its annual convention in Washington, D.C., but he was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, and charged with a felony, restraint of trade, for picketing for desegregation of public places. The AVC attendees instead took up a collection of money to send to Jackson to “keep courageous children safe and well.”
After nine years of civil rights and voting registration work, several attempts to kill him, and numerous death threats, Evers was assassinated outside his home by a white supremacist in June 1963. At first, the hospital refused him admittance because he was Black. His wife and young children pleaded while he bled to death in the car. The hospital admitted him, but he died within an hour. He was 37 years old.
Evers had spoken at an integration rally the night before. Over 700 African American citizens were arrested that month alone in his area for protesting for the end to Jim Crowe laws which enforced racial segregation in the military, public places, schools, transportation, federal workplaces, restaurants, drinking fountains, and restrooms, creating institutionalized economic, educational, and social disadvantages for many African Americans living in the United States. Hundreds more were arrested when they attempted to march after Evers was killed. African Americans were rounded up for trying to enter whites-only restaurants and picketing other places and taken via garbage trucks and other means to campgrounds put aside for their holding which were declared no better than concentration camps. African Americans were not allowed positions on police forces in Mississippi in the 1960s.
Rewards for information on Evers' killer/s were offered by the city of Jackson, the NAACP, the United Steel Workers Union, local newspapers, and other groups. U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy assigned FBI agents to track down the sniper. However, Evers’ murderer was tried and released twice by white juries in the 1960s.
It took until 1994 for a racially mixed jury to find the murderer guilty and sentence him to life in prison.
Evers stated in 1960: “Threats sometimes frighten me, but I’m going to continue the work even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice.” He made that sacrifice. Evers was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. Over 3,000 people attended the ceremony. However, his legacy is not his death, it is the many positive contributions he made to advancing rights for all people.
The Medgar Evers School at 9811 S. Lowe Street opened in 1969.
The Ridge Historical Society
Carol Flynn
School Series – Profile 12: George Cassell
As we start the new school year, the Ridge Historical Society will run a few more posts about the people for whom Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in the Ridge communities are named. So far, we have covered eleven schools and people: Alice Barnard, Percy Julian, Charles Wacker, John Vanderpoel, Johnnie Colemon, John S. Shoop, Annie Keller, Marcus Garvey, Henry Clissold, Rudyard Kipling, and Kate Starr Kellogg. You can look back on the RHS Facebook page to find any of these previous posts, or send a message and we can send you the post.
Today we will look at George Frederick Cassell (1884-1958), a lifelong educator and administrator in the CPS system.
Cassell was born on Chicago’s west side to parents who had immigrated from England. His father’s occupation was listed as a machinist.
Cassell was educated in Chicago’s schools. He graduated from Marshall High School in 1901, and attended every one of the school’s alumni reunions throughout his life. He was honored at the 1947 event. He married Lettice Owen, a fellow Marshall graduate, in 1918.
He received an associate degree from the Lewis Institute, a school that merged into what today is the Illinois Institute of Technology. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago. His bios report he briefly attended the University of Berlin and later Northwestern University, but he did not pursue a master’s degree.
Cassell took his first teaching job in 1908 at Lewis, where he taught English and German. In 1912, he became an English teacher at Marshall. In 1921, he became principal of a Chicago public elementary school, and served as principal at four other elementary schools until 1934, when he was named principal of Harrison High School.
He was active in the Illinois State Teachers Association during these years, and in 1930, at a conference of the National Education Association of the U.S., he presented a paper on “English and Its Value to Our Schools” which was widely circulated. In this paper he not only advised of the importance of students, including those of immigrants, learning the proper English language, but also the benefits of studying and learning from good literature, both fiction and non-fiction.
In 1935, Cassell was named district superintendent of high schools, and in 1936, assistant superintendent in charge of all Chicago high schools.
The Chicago schools weathered the Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II in the 1940s. Cassell navigated Chicago high schools through a dramatic shift in priorities due to the war effort.
Manufacturing plants turning out war items lured young people away from school and into jobs by offering high pay. In 1943, the number of summer work permits for 16 and 17-year-olds soared, and school registration for fall dropped. Cassell encouraged the industries to not renew work permits for this age group so they would finish high school. Alternative work/study programs in partnership with businesses were implemented and counseling services were provided for young people seeking employment.
This tied into the other shift in high school education that came about as a result of World War II – a new emphasis on trade and vocational education programs and less emphasis on academic programs. Chicago had one of the largest war training programs in the country.
In 1946, Cassell was named acting superintendent of schools upon the resignation of William H. Johnson.
The North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools (NCA) had announced it was considering withdrawing its accreditation of Chicago schools because the city did not have a politically independent school board whose members were recommended by a citizens’ advisory committee, with the superintendent serving as the chief executive officer of the schools. Johnson was considered a political appointee and the school board had a structure of departments reporting to the board, not the superintendent. Accreditation was important for the prestige of schools, and high school graduates from non-accredited schools had to take special entrance exams to get into colleges.
Cassell’s appointment was first met with resistance by the NCA because Cassell did not have a master’s degree, but due to his accomplishments and reputation, he was accepted in the position and even proposed as permanent superintendent. However, he announced that because he was so close to retirement, he would not consider the position as a permanent appointment.
Cassell dealt with everything from high school football issues to school board politics in his short time as acting superintendent. His philosophy and priorities as an educator and administrator are perhaps shown best by three instances from his time as acting superintendent.
First, he made this statement: “The success of the schools is conditioned largely by the abilities and attitudes of the teachers and their happiness in the conditions under which they work.”
He clearly kept his focus on the teachers and students, not on administrative issues and politics.
Second, he won applause from the Chicago Medical Society when he fully supported that students receive regular medical and dental care.
“The values of periodic medical and dental examinations and the correction of remedial defects are indisputable. Pupils should be encouraged to visit their family physicians and dentists wherever possible. Principals will please give their wholehearted support to this most worthwhile project,” wrote Cassell.
The third example of his philosophy was the appointment of Grace E. Munson as assistant superintendent. Munson was a psychologist with Ph.D.s in education and psychology who had been a teacher and principal. Under her, the Chicago schools developed some of the country’s best programs for special needs children. She started scientific testing programs, adjusting teaching services for individual special needs, and keeping cumulative records on students. Her appointment to the position was controversial but Cassell supported the need for special education, and Munson served in this capacity until both she and Cassell retired in 1949.
Cassell served as acting superintendent of Chicago schools for a year until a new superintendent was chosen, and Cassell returned to his position as assistant superintendent. Cassell was commended for his performance in the temporary role, and Herold C. Hunt, the new superintendent, appointed Cassell as the “first assistant superintendent” in 1948.
New taxes were introduced to increase the school system’s budget and give pay raises to all the staff. Cassell was paid $16,500 annually for the role of first superintendent. He was being paid $10,700 previously for his role as assistant supervisor in charge of high schools.
Throughout his career, Cassell gave speeches at commencement exercises and other events to honor students. For many years, Chicago featured a “Youth Week,” and WGN radio had a program “Citizens of Tomorrow” that profiled outstanding honor students from the high schools and junior colleges. At luncheons that were recorded for broadcast on the radio, Cassell gave talks and presented scholarships to students.
After he retired, the Reserved Officer Training Corps (ROTC), at a dinner sponsored by the Chicago Tribune and WGN radio, paid tribute to Cassell for his “enthusiastic backing” of ROTC programs in Chicago high schools. In attendance at the dinner were military officials, Chicago educators, and 200 cadets from eight states who had won awards from the Tribune for their military and naval work. Hunt, the superintendent of Chicago schools, gave the recognition speech for Cassell.
George F. Cassell died of a heart attack while he and his wife were vacationing in Colorado. He was 74. He was buried in Forest Park, Illinois.
In 1960, the George F. Cassell School opened at 113th Street and South Spaulding Avenue in Mount Greenwood.
Native Americans and the Blue Island Ridge – Part 13Games and Trade
The Potawatomi Indians, the major presence in the Chicago area by the 1830s when European settlers started moving to the Blue Island area, enjoyed games and sports. They were important pastime activities and formed connections within and between tribal communities.
Gambling games were popular and could go on for days. Men played a game known as straws in which the number of straws in bundles was guessed. Women played a game with plum stones marked on one side. The stones were tossed in a small bowl and points were assigned for the stones that landed with the markings face up.
The sport of lacrosse was invented by Native Americans. A wooden tree knot was used as a ball and the object of the game was to score goals by throwing and catching this ball in a small basket made from buffalo sinew that was attached to the end of a three-foot-long wooden pole or racket.
Lacrosse was considered a symbolic warrior game, played for the honor of the tribe. Teams of hundreds of members played on large fields. It was a violent game and players could be severely injured and even killed. Men and women both played the sport.
The Potawatomi were avid traders. Information and technology were traded back then just as they are now.
The Potawatomi were expert canoe builders, making good use of the birch trees found locally. They traded this knowledge and technology with other tribes and European traders for goods, and for information and technology on growing crops.
The canoes also gave the Potawatomi considerable freedom of movement that other tribes did not have. They were able to travel long distances through Midwest waterways to reach trading sites. With the introduction of horses by the Europeans, the Potawatomi became less reliant on travel by water, and were able to expand their trading and hunting opportunities.
The most important harvested trade items were furs. For several hundred years, fur trading drove the economy in the land that would become the northern United States and Canada. Beaver, especially valued for making hats, were overhunted to the point they became locally extinct. Deer, bear, mink, and skunk were also valuable.
In addition to economic benefits, the fur trade became important for forging alliances between the Europeans and the Native Americans. However, the competition between Native American groups to meet the demand of the Europeans for furs led to considerable inter-tribal conflict.
The Indians traded furs for guns, alcohol, glass beads, silk ribbon, and cloth, items introduced by the Europeans that were novel to the Native Americans.
The interest in beads and ribbons is sometimes trivialized as valuing “trinkets” but in reality, the Indigenous Peoples already had what they needed for subsistence so there was little in that way to get from the Europeans.
Guns were new to the Native Americans and the advantage of this technology over bows and arrows for hunting and warfare quickly became apparent to them. The gun trade became highly competitive for the European colonists and the Indians. Many tribes amassed arsenals superior to those of the settlers.
Perhaps no product was more controversial than alcohol when it came to trade between the Europeans and the Native Americans. Alcohol was not unknown to Indians; various cultures had been making weak beers, wines, and other drinks from plants and grains for thousands of years, but these were generally used for spiritual, medicinal, and ceremonial purposes, not for personal entertainment and intoxication. The Native Americans were totally unprepared for the potent alcoholic beverages like rum, brandy, and whiskey introduced by the European settlers.
Many Native Americans responded with distaste and mistrust as unscrupulous white traders pushed alcohol on them, and many tribal leaders recognized the dangers and called for abstinence. Nonetheless, alcohol became a destabilizing force in Native American communities and created serious health issues both before and after forced relocation. Laws were passed banning the sale of alcohol to Indians, but these laws were ignored and circumvented.
Although much ado has been made historically about alcohol consumption within the Native American communities, in truth, alcohol consumption was extremely prevalent in the white communities also. By 1830, an average of 7.1 gallons of absolute alcohol was consumed annually per individual of drinking age in the white community. Today, that average is about 2.3 gallons per person per year.
It’s often reported that, going back to medieval times, alcoholic beverages were made and consumed because local water supplies were not clean for drinking, but this has been largely disputed and debunked. Even in medieval times, people knew that boiling water got rid of bad odors and tastes, even if they did not realize they were killing harmful organisms.
It’s also reported that alcohol was believed to have medicinal properties and drinking it was “healthy.” This was the case with smoking tobacco for many years, also. Of course, tobacco was first discovered and cultivated by Native Americans and then introduced to the Europeans. Tobacco, which was used by Native Americans in religious ceremonies and for sealing agreements with other tribes, was an early trading item between Native Americans and white settlers until settlers started growing their own tobacco crops.
Next: Documented Native American sites in the Blue Island Ridge area
Native Americans and the Blue Island Ridge – Part 12Food and Other Resources
About 60% of the food crops grown throughout the world originated with the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. These include corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, wild rice, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, peanuts, avocados, papayas, potatoes, cacao, and many more foods.
The Calumet Region around the southern part of Lake Michigan, which extended west to include the Blue Island Ridge, and the land to the west and south of the Ridge, abounded with natural resources. Ecosystems in the area at the time included extensive marshes and wetlands, prairies, and forests of different types of oak, walnut, hickory, elm, maple, and some pine trees.
The Potawatomi engaged in all types of food and resource procurement. They hunted and fished; they gathered wild food plants and cultivated crops; and they used other plants and natural items for building and toolmaking.
The seasons set the activities. In spring, the Potawatomi tapped maple trees for sugar. In spring and summer, the communities came together to plant and grow crops, and to socialize. In the fall, harvesting crops and gathering wild plants took place. Fishing was a year-round activity. In winter, smaller groups went off on their own, and most of their time was spent in making and repairing belongings, and story telling and oral history sessions around the fire.
Using bow and arrow, the Potawatomi hunted deer, elk, beaver, and small game and fur-bearing animals such as rabbits, squirrels, muskrats, and mink. Prairie birds included wild turkeys, grouse, partridges, quail, pigeons, and prairie chickens. Waterfowl visited the marshes annually. In spring, larger hunting parties went after buffalo. Bears were in the area, and predators such as wolves, lynx, bobcats, and the occasional mountain lion were all hunted.
In addition to the meat from the animals, deer skins were used for pants, shirts, dresses, and moccasins. Winter clothing was made from buffalo hides and furs. Plants were used for dyes for clothing. Porcupine quills were used as embroidery needles. Bird feathers and shells decorated clothing, and after the 1600s, beads and silk ribbons from the European traders were used. Red and black paints made from plants were used for facial and body painting and tattoos.
Many types of trees provided resources. The Potawatomi were renowned as canoe builders, using the bark of birch trees. Birch bark was also used to build homes. Floor mats were woven from reeds and cattails, and baskets and bags were made from hickory bark and animal skins. Mussel shells were used as utensils.
Musical instruments included drums made from hollow logs covered with animal skins, rattles made from deer hooves, and wooden or bone flutes.
In addition to Lake Michigan, the system of small lakes (Calumet, Wolf) and rivers and streams (the Calumet rivers, Stony Creek) teemed with fish – trout, white fish, pike. The Potawatomi used spears and nets for fishing.
Wild fruit and nut trees and bushes were plentiful in season. Red and yellow plums, crabapples, haws, grapes, sassafras, and pawpaws were all to be found. The marshes and sand hills provided cranberries, huckleberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, whortleberries, raspberries, roseberries, gooseberries, currants, and winter berries. The sugar from the maple trees was used to sweeten the fruit. Native Americans used berries in tea, puddings, soups, cakes, muffins, and jam.
Nuts included hazelnuts, hickory nuts, white and black walnuts, and beech nuts. Nuts were pounded into flour for bread.
The wild rice that grew in the marshes all around the area not only was gathered as a food item by the Indians, but it also attracted the migrating waterfowl the Indians hunted – ducks including mallards, shovellers, blue-winged teals, and mergansers; coots; geese; and herons.
Greens that the Indians gathered included dandelions, lamb’s quarters, and stinging nettles. Roots included wild artichokes, milkweed, arrowhead, and wild dill. These items were not only very nutritious, many possessed medicinal qualities. Other medicinal plants that were gathered included ironweed, culver’s root, and prairie snakeroot.
The Potawatomi grew corn, beans, squash, peas, melons, pumpkins, onions, and tobacco.
Corn was the most important crop the Potawatomi grew, both for eating and for trade. Corn, squash, and beans were called the “three sisters” and were staples of the diet. They were often grown together and combined together in dishes. Corn was a sacred food for Native Americans, and it went by different names that all meant “life.” It was served at almost every meal in one form or another.
One example of a corn dish from the Native Americans was rockahominie. This was corn pounded to remove the skins, boiled, and served with salt or maple sugar. Today this is a version of “hominy grits.” They also dried corn and ground it into meal to thicken the soups and stews they prepared.
The Potawatomi developed agricultural techniques including the controlled burning off of foliage, which aided hunting as well as killed pests and cleared land for farming; and ridged fields or garden beds that allowed for better drainage. Food, including meat, fish, and vegetables, was dried and stored over winter in birch bark containers.
Native Americans used tobacco for ceremonial purposes. The manitou spirits were believed to be very fond of tobacco, so it was offered to them to ask for or give thanks for help, either as dried gifts or through smoke from pipes. It was also used to seal peace treaties and agreements between tribes and between individuals. Tobacco was smoked in ceremonial pipes, the stem of which was called the “calumet” by the French traders, and this is the origin of the name for this entire southside region.
Next: Trade, games, and other aspects of Potawatomi life on the Ridge
Native Americans and the Blue Island Ridge – Part 11Gender Roles
There were specific gender roles in the Native American groups that inhabited the Calumet region.
In addition to being responsible for childcare and the home, women were in charge of agriculture and food, a vital aspect of village life. They managed the sowing, cultivation, and harvesting of crops. Typically, the women in the families were the “owners” of specific crop fields although the fields were often communally farmed and harvested. Men were expected to help with the clearing and harvesting of the fields. The entire tribe gathered wild fruits, nuts, and medicinal plants.
Men were responsible for hunting and fishing. Women built the temporary structures used for homes during seasonal hunting trips. Women did the tanning of the hides and dyed them different colors using roots and plants.
Local hunting was done by individuals or small groups of men. In spring, larger groups hunted buffalo on the prairies. Deer were often hunted at night. Potawatomi used spears to fish at night with torches of cedar soaked in pine pitch.
There were generally more women than men in a tribe, as men were lost through hunting and fishing accidents and warfare. Polygamy was practiced – a man could have several wives but he was expected to be able to provide for all of them. Infidelity was frowned upon for both sexes. Women could be subjected to physical mutilation or group rape for breaking the tribe’s norms. Men were subjected to the loss of their personal possessions for the same crimes.
The Potawatomi were organized into clans, or smaller family-based units, considered descended from a non-human ancestor, usually an animal. The lineage of a clan was from the male side, but ties to the mother’s family were also important. People did not marry within their own clan, and a woman usually joined her husband’s clan upon marriage. The intermarriages between clans created important links. The Potawatomi freely married members of the Ojibwe and Odawa tribes, their confederates in the Council of Three Fires.
Women rarely served in formal leadership roles. Occasionally one might be a village chief but never a hunting or warfare chief. They had a voice in selecting chiefs, however, and it was reported that in some tribes, it was the women who actually selected the chief.
Women could become powerful healers, and older, experienced “medicine women” held a lot of power in a tribe along with the “medicine men.”
We’ll talk more about games and pastimes of the Native Americans in the area in a future post. These tended to be games of physical prowess, in which the men participated, and gambling games, which the women, as well as men, played. There were specific ceremonial dice games that only women played.
As for the arts, Potawatomi women were, and still are, known for their basket making, using black ash, sweetgrass, and birch bark. Their beadwork and embroidery also became recognized starting in the 1600s with the introduction of glass beads, ribbon, and fabrics, brought by the Europeans. The Potawatomi were also known for their birchbark canoes. These were goods used by the tribe and also traded in commerce. It was the men who did the actual trading with other tribes and the Europeans.
As far as gender identities, Native American tribes recognized as many as five genders, before the Europeans came. These were male and female, “two-spirited” males and females, and transgenders. It was not considered a moral issue; some people were born with the spirits of both sexes or the spirit of the other sex and it was natural to express that. There were many observations of male tribe members who dressed like and took on women’s roles, and of “Hunting Women” who had wives and were fierce warriors. Indians believed that a person who was able to see the world through the eyes of both genders at the same time was a gift from the Creator and often these people had special status in society.
Next: The staples of existence for the Ridge Native Americans – food, clothing, etc.
Native Americans and the Blue Island Ridge – Part 10Spirituality of the Calumet Region Native Americans
This is a very brief introduction to the religions and spiritual beliefs of Native American groups, considered from the perspective of the relationship to the land, for developing Land Acknowledgement Statements. Readers are encouraged to explore the topic in much further depth.
According to John Low, Ph.D., J.D., professor at Ohio State University, an enrolled citizen of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, in a presentation titled “Pokegnek Bodewadmik – The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians – Keepers of the Fire,” “Our ancestors believed in a Creator, Kishaminado. Much of our spirituality has been passed down to us generation by generation and remains private and personal.”
Kishaminado, also known as Kitchesmanetoa to other tribes, was the maker of all things. Potawatomi individuals interacted with Kishaminado through manitous, or personal spirits, which could take a variety of shapes, usually animals. A personal manitou was revealed through dreams.
There were also manitous that resided in natural objects, such as the sun, stars, trees, and rocks, that helped everyone. The Native Americans of the Calumet also had special manitous for war situations, usually birds such as falcons, crows, ducks, swallows, and martins. Not all manitous were helpful, however, and some were greatly feared. Deep water had a manitou that could cause turbulence and drowning. Manitous served as an incredibly important means for relating the spiritual and physical worlds.
Another academic author who wrote about Native American spirituality was Jack D. Forbes, Ph.D. (1934 – 2011), who established one of the first Native American Studies programs (at University of California Davis). He was of Powhatan-Renape and Lenape descent, both historic Algonquian-speaking tribes like the Potawatomi.
Wrote Forbes in a 2001 paper called “Indigenous Americans: Spirituality and Ecos”: “Perhaps the most important aspect … is the conception of creation as a living process, resulting in a living universe in which kinship exists between all things…. An overriding characteristic of Native North American religion is that of gratitude, a feeling of overwhelming love and thankfulness for the gifts of the Creator and the earth/universe.”
According to Forbes, Native Americans take a very broad view of “environment.”
“Our ecos, from the indigenous point of view, extends out to the very boundaries of the great totality of existence, the Wemi Tali,” wrote Forbes.
Forbes wrote about the “sacredness of Mother Earth” and the “rights of the earth not to be mutilated.”
“Native people, according to Standing Bear [a Lakota chief and writer in the 1930s], were often baffled by the European tendency to refer to nature as crude, primitive, wild, rude, untamed, and savage. ‘For the Lakota, mountains, lakes, rivers, springs, valleys, and woods were all finished beauty,’” wrote Forbes.
Introduced to Christianity, Native Americans incorporated elements into their own beliefs, which happened throughout history with most groups, including Europeans. Native Americans linked the Christian God to the sun manitou. Life could not exist without the sun.
The Potawatomi became connected to the Catholic church due to the Jesuit missionaries who visited the area beginning in the 1600s. The Christian god was akin to the Great Creator. Some historians believe the adoption of the Christian faith was a way to help preserve their own culture and religious beliefs by melding the two.
Today, wrote Low, “The Potawatomi retain the legacy of understanding the power of Medicine Bundles and Medicine Bags, Vision Quests, and Naming Ceremonies. Also understood are the importance of songs and dance, feasts, as well as the use of sacred medicines provided by the Creator, such as tobacco, sage, cedar, and sweetgrass.
“Our ancestors used the ceremonies of the longhouse and the sweatlodge to honor the Creator and all that surrounded them and also as a way to purify the mind and body. Those traditions continue today. Prayers have always had an important role in Potawatomi spiritual life. Some Potawatomi participated in a spiritual path called the Midewiwin which combines the knowledge of natural healing with a code of conduct for proper living. That tradition continues as well. Many Potawatomi retain the belief of their ancestors that death is followed by a four-day journey along the Milky Way to the place where the Spirits dwell.”
Midewiwins are religious societies within the group that have specific teachings and practices. “Mide” means “spirit doings” or “spiritual mystery.” They are often referred to as “medicine lodges” but they concentrate on the spiritual causes in connection to natural healing. The priests who ran the Midewiwins were the highest rank in the religious hierarchy.
In summary, the Potawatomi who lived in the Blue Island Ridge area believed in a Great Creator and connected to this entity in a personal and private way. They believed that they were part of the entire universe, and did not exist separate from the earth. The earth was sacred, to be respected and preserved. Their religious ceremonies revolved around gratitude and humility for the gifts given them from the Creator, and learning and following a path of proper behavior and thought to honor all things. The Potawatomi became connected to the Catholic church due to the Jesuits who visited the area and preached Christianity starting in the 1600s.
Next topic: Gender roles