History Pre-European contactĮarly Potawatomi were hunter-gatherers living on the west side of the Great Freshwater Sea, Lake Huron. In the mid-2000s the Potawatomi were scattered throughout the Midwest and Prairie states some lived on reservations, but many lived in cities and other rural areas. Due to a series of treaties and white settlement on their land, many Potawatomi were relocated to the south-central states. After contact with the French, they replaced their canoes with horses and became fur traders and buffalo hunters. Before Europeans came, the tribe lived near the rivers and lakes of lower Michigan. Potawatomi history is marked by tribal expansion and transformation from a hunter-gatherer culture to a farming culture and later to a buffalo-hunting culture. After separating, the “Three Fires Confederacy” retained a special relationship, often living in the same communities and supporting each other in battles with Europeans and Americans.

The three groups came to be known as the Potawatomi, the Ojibway, and the Ottawa.

Sometime before the early 1600s they split into three factions near the Michigan Straits of Mackinac. The ancestors of the Potawatomi lived on the east coast of the United States, but according to their traditions, after receiving a message from the spirit world, they migrated westward. census showed that 16,164 Potawatomi lived in the United States. The tribe was grouped with the other two members of the “Three Fires Confederacy,“the Ottawa and Ojibway (see entry). Beginning with the 2001 census, Canada no longer provided separate population statistics for the Potawatomi. Census, 16,719 people identified themselves as Potawatomi. In the early 1800s there were an estimated 9,000 to 10,000 Potawatomi. (Reserve is the Canadian term for reservation.) Population They also resided on several reserves in Canada. In the mid-2000s, they lived on scattered reservations and communities in southern Michigan and the upper peninsula of Michigan, in northern Indiana, northeastern Wisconsin, northeastern Kansas, and central Oklahoma. The Potawatomi originally lived on the east coast of the United States. The name Potawatomi (pronounced pot-uh-WOT-uh-mee) comes from the Ojibway “potawatomink,” which means “people of the place of fire.” The Potawatomi call themselves Nishnabek, meaning “true or original people.” Location

Casino connection online potawatomi