Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ
“Partie Occidentale de la Nouvelle France ou du Canada,” by Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1755)
Land-history research for 9601 Union Rd., Plymouth IN
“Taking possession of Louisiana and the River Mississippi, in the name of Louis XIVth, by Cavalier De La Salle” by Jean-Adolphe Bocquin (c. 1860)
European Contact
The Doctrine of Discovery at Plymouth, IN
“Leaders of the Continental Congress. John Adams, Morris, Hamilton, Jefferson,” by Augustus Tholey (c. 1894)
Settler Colonialism
The Treaty Period
Good Faith.
“The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights and liberty, they never shall be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorised by Congress; but laws found in justice and humanity shall from time to time be made, for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.”
“An ordinance for the government of the territory of the United States, North-west of the river Ohio,” passed by the Continental Congress (July 13, 1787)
“Signing of the Treaty of Greene Ville,” by Howard Chandler Christy (1945)
Protect.
“If any citizen of the United States, or any other white person or persons shall presume to settle upon the lands now relinquished by the United States, such citizen or other person shall be out of the protection of the United States; and the Indian tribe, on whose land the settlement shall be made, may drive off the settler, or punish him in such manner as they shall think fit; and . . . the United States shall be at liberty to break them up and remove and punish the settlers as they shall thing proper, and so effect that protection of the Indian lands[.]”
Sepia ink drawing of Lewis Cass by James Barton Longacre (c. 1833)
Removal.
“It is the object of the government, in this measure, to extinguish entirely, so far as it can be effected, the native title to all Indian lands in the State of Indiana, & to so much of the land of the Potawatomies as lies in the State of Illinois & the Territory of Michigan; & to procure the removal of the tribes now occupying them west of the Mississippi.
Instructions to Treaty Commissioners by Secretary of War Lewis Cass (July 14, 1832)
“Ash-kum at Lake Kee-waw- knay,” by George Winter (1838)
Proper.
“Colonel Pepper was instructed to treat for the purchase of all those reservations remaining unsold. Ash-kum and Che-chaw-kose refused to treat. Colonel Pepper then avowed his intention of treating with the proper chiefs of the whole nation for the cession of those reservations, and he did so. The treaty of the 23rd of September, 1836, was that which he thus made, to which neither Ash-kum nor Che-chaw-kose, nor any of their bands, were parties. This, as might have been expected, produced great excitement in those two chiefs and their bands. They denied the right of the chiefs of the nation to sell their particular reservations without their consent.”
Report of J.W. Edmonds, United States Commissioner, Upon the Disturbance at the Potowatamie Payment, September, 1836 (Dec. 2, 1837)
“Map of Treaty Cessions by Charles C. Royce, Bureau of American Ethnology (1899)
Primary Sources
& Markups
Current Law
Land Becomes Property
Primary Sources
& Markups
“Outline Map of Marshall County, Indiana,” by George A Ogle & Co. (1908)
“Plymouth Fire Co., Plymouth, Ind.” by unknown artist (1913)
Curated Resource List for the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ
There’s more
To learn the history of the United States’ removal of the Bodwéwadmi (Potawatomi) to land west of the Mississippi River:
Read John P. Bowes, Land Too Good For Indians: Northern Indian Removal (Univ. Okla. Press, 2017)
Photograph of Potawatomi leader and treaty signer Shab-eh-nay (Shabbona) by W.E. Bowman (c. 1858)
For Indigenous perspectives on U.S. history:
Read Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (Yale University Press, 2023)
Read Anton Treuer, Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask: Revised and Expanded (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2023)
Read Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2015)
For a modern Bodwéwadmi (Potawatomi) voice:
Read Levi Rickert, Visions for a Better Indian Country: One Potawatomi Elder's Opinions (Indian Country Media, 2022)