Battle of Fort Dearborn

Battle of Fort Dearborn. August 15, 1812. From roughly 1620 to 1820, the territory of the Potawatomi extended from what is now Green Bay, Wisconsin, to Detroit, Michigan, and included the Chicago area. In 1803, the United States government built Fort Dearborn at what is today Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive, as part of a strategic effort to protect lucrative trading in the area from the British. During the War of 18 12 between the United States and Great Britain, some Indian tribes allied with the British to stop the westward expansion of the United States and to regain lost Indian lands. On August 15, 1812 more than 50 U.S. soldiers and 41 civilians, including 9 women and 18 children, were ordered to evacuate Fort Dearborn. This group, almost the entire population of U.S citizens in the Chicago area, marched south from Fort Dearborn along the shoreline of Lake Michigan until they reached this approximate site, where they were attacked by about 500 Potawatomi. In the battle and aftermath, more than 60 of the evacuees and 15 native Americans were killed. The dead included army Captain William Wells, who had come from Fort Wayne with Miami Indians to assist in the evacuation, and Naunongee, chief of the village of Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Ottawa Indians known as Three Fires Confederacy. In the 1830s, the Potawatomi of Illinois were forcibly removed to lands west of the Mississippi. Potawatomi Indian Nations continue to thrive in Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Canada, and more than 36,000 American Indians from a variety of tribes reside in Chicago today.