Sold – President Andrew Jackson Orders Implementation of a Treaty Ejecting the Potawatomi Indians From Their Ancestral Lands

The majestic Chief Nas-waw-kee’s heart-rending farewell speech when forced to remove pursuant to this treaty: “You have been speaking of our miseries and wretchedness. Your counsels have brought these miseries on us. By your advice the very lands on which we expected to terminate our existence have been sold from us.”

From time immemorial the Potawatomi Indians had resided in what is now northern Indiana, and in the 1830s Nas-waw-kee was their great chief. In a treaty with the United States dated October 26, 1832, he was forced to cede most of northern Indiana, but some lands were reserved for him and various other chiefs, such as I-o-wah and Mes-quaw-buck with the pierced nose. Nas-waw-kee and his brother Quash-qua retained certain sections of land at Lake Maxinkuckee, one for him alone, and three for he and his brother. This was supposed to be reserved for them, their families, and their bands. But very soon the authorities in Washington wanted all of the Potawatomi out of the region, and in 1836 Nas-waw-kee was required to sign additional treaties in which he ceded his reservation lands at Lake Maxinkuckee and agreed to go west of the Mississippi River by 1838. The first and most important of these was signed on April 23, 1836.

Above: Naswakee

A council was ordered for August 1837 at Lake Kee-wau-nay (now Lake Bruce), to be attended by the Indians being removed, their white neighbors, and representatives of U.S. government. The Potawatomi had not been eager to gather, for in the past the treaties discussed had not held any benefits for them, but the government required the council to be held. The artist George Winter attended it, sketched Nas-wau-kee, and recorded what happened there. Nas-waw-kee was a tall and dignified figure with long and flowing hair, and was wearing a thick white coat, as he approached the council place. He was the “speaker,” followed by the chiefs, head men, and warriors. They took seats up on a fallen tree and were silent. The U.S. government representative, a man named Pepper, told the gathered Indians about the friendship of their Great Father, the President Andrew Jackson – that he had their interests at heart and had prepared a home for them in the West, where as a nation they would grow in vigor and strength. The country even exceeded the fertility of Indiana, the climate milder, and they would find game in abundance. He mentioned their present miseries and reminded them that they had sold their land and agreed to go West. Pepper’s insistence that a removal was for the Indians own good was a routine claim to make during the Jackson administration.

Then Nas-waw-kee stood and spoke, giving a heart-rending speech on why the Indians did not want to go west. He was educated and spoke of all the treaties from the time of General Wayne in the 18th century down to the last made in 1836. “Now Father, everything I say comes from the heart…You have been speaking of our miseries and wretchedness. Your counsels have brought these miseries on us. By your advice the very lands on which we expected to terminate our existence have been sold from us.” He continued, “Father, we do not see why it is that we should be requested to go west and live long. Man’s life is uncertain, and ere we reach that country, death may overtake us. I see not how our natural existence should be prolonged by going west…” At the end Nas-wau-kee shook everyone’s hand, and there were many with tears in their eyes. This farewell speech was published in “Removal of the Pottawattomie Indians from Northern Indiana,” by Daniel McDonald in 1899.

The next day Nas-wau-kee led his band to Chief Kee-wau-nay’s village and on to Logansport, Indiana, joining Chief Kee-wau-nay’s band for the journey to Kansas. The removal was called an emigration by the U.S. government and began August 23, 1837, being led by Indianan George Proffit. On the trip Proffit recorded that Nas-waw-kay was sick with cholera for three days, but no Indian in this group of Potawatomi died. They arrived in Kansas on October 23, 1837. The following year another group of Potawatomi, called the Mission Band or Wabash Band, were not so lucky. They arrived from northern Indiana on November 4, 1838, at the end of their own Trail of Death. They had suffered greatly and lost 42 members to death along the trail.

Document Signed, Washington, May 25, 1836, being the very authorization to implement the treaty ejecting the Potawatomi, with language directing “The Secretary of State to affix the seal of the United States to a Treaty made with the Nas-waw-kee and other Potawatamie Indians, on the 23rd of April 1836…” A search of public sale records over the past 40 years shows just two documents authorizing implementation of Indian treaties have come up for sale in that time, the last one being almost two decades ago. This is the first we have carried, or indeed seen, in all that time.