Topinabee (Chief Topinabee; He Who Sits Quietly; born 1758, died 1826) was a Potawatomi tribe leader and a signer of very important treaties. He was born in his father's village on the St. Joseph River in 1758. Next to his father, Old Chief Nanaquiba, he was also noted as one of the greatest Potawatomi chiefs of all time. He was documented as a great warrior and known for his great tactical decisions in many battles like his father. Before he died in 1826, he was known as a leader of the Potawatomi tribe of the Midwestern United States. He signed the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, that ceded much of what is now Ohio to the United States. He also signed 11 later treaties during his leadership. He was succeeded as a leader of the Potawatomi by Leopold Pokagon.
Chief Topinabee was the son of hereditary sachem chief of all Potawatomis, Nanaquiba, and brother to Chief Chebaas, biological grandfather of Chief Abram B. Burnett (Nan-Wesh-Mah). He was a great warrior and highly respected, intelligent chief involved in battles and noted as a war chief to Tecumseh during Tecumseh's War.
The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought on November 7, 1811, in Battle Ground, Indiana, between American forces led by then Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory and tribal forces associated with Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, leaders of a confederacy of various tribes who opposed European-American settlement of the American frontier. As tensions and violence increased, Governor Harrison marched with an army of about 1,000 men to attack the confederacy's headquarters at Prophetstown, near the confluence of the Tippecanoe River and the Wabash River.
Tecumseh was a Shawnee chief and warrior who promoted resistance to the expansion of the United States onto Native American lands. A persuasive orator, Tecumseh traveled widely, forming a Native American confederacy and promoting intertribal unity. Even though his efforts to unite Native Americans ended with his death in the War of 1812, he became an iconic folk hero in American, Indigenous, and Canadian popular history.
The Potawatomi, also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie, are a Native American people of the Great Plains, upper Mississippi River, and western Great Lakes region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquian family. The Potawatomi call themselves Neshnabé, a cognate of the word Anishinaabe. The Potawatomi are part of a long-term alliance, called the Council of Three Fires, with the Ojibway and Odawa (Ottawa). In the Council of Three Fires, the Potawatomi are considered the "youngest brother". Their people are referred to in this context as Bodéwadmi, a name that means "keepers of the fire" and refers to the council fire of three peoples.
The Treaty of Greenville, also known to Americans as the Treaty with the Wyandots, etc., but formally titled A treaty of peace between the United States of America, and the tribes of Indians called the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanees, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pattawatimas, Miamis, Eel Rivers, Weas, Kickapoos, Piankeshaws, and Kaskaskias was a 1795 treaty between the United States and indigenous nations of the Northwest Territory, including the Wyandot and Delaware peoples, that redefined the boundary between indigenous peoples' lands and territory for European American community settlement.
Tecumseh's War or Tecumseh's Rebellion was a conflict between the United States and Tecumseh's Confederacy, led by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh in the Indiana Territory. Although the war is often considered to have climaxed with William Henry Harrison's victory at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, Tecumseh's War essentially continued into the War of 1812 and is frequently considered a part of that larger struggle. The war lasted for two more years, until 1813, when Tecumseh and his second-in-command, Roundhead, died fighting Harrison's Army of the Northwest at the Battle of the Thames in Upper Canada, near present-day Chatham, Ontario, and his confederacy disintegrated. Tecumseh's War is viewed by some academic historians as the final conflict of a longer-term military struggle for control of the Great Lakes region of North America, encompassing a number of wars over several generations, referred to as the Sixty Years' War.
The Shawnee are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language.
Chalahgawtha was the name of one of the five divisions of the Shawnee, a Native American people, during the 18th century. It was also the name of the principal village of the division. The other four divisions were the Mekoche, Kispoko, Pekowi, and Hathawekela. Together these divisions formed the loose confederacy that was the Shawnee tribe.
Tenskwatawa was a Native American religious and political leader of the Shawnee tribe, known as the Prophet or the Shawnee Prophet. He was a younger brother of Tecumseh, a leader of the Shawnee. In his early years Tenskwatawa was given the name Lalawethika, but he changed it around 1805 and transformed himself from a hapless, alcoholic youth into an influential spiritual leader. Tenskwatawa denounced the Americans, calling them the offspring of the Evil Spirit, and led a purification movement that promoted unity among the Indigenous peoples of North America, rejected acculturation to the American way of life, and encouraged his followers to pursue traditional ways.
Billy Caldwell, baptized Thomas Caldwell, known also as Sauganash, was a British-Potawatomi fur trader who was commissioned captain in the Indian Department of Canada during the War of 1812. He moved to the United States in 1818 and settled there. In 1829 and 1833, he negotiated treaties on behalf of the United Nations of Chippewa, Ottawa and Potawatomi with the United States, and became a leader of a Potawatomi band at Trader's Point. He worked to gain the boundary long promised by the British between white settlers and Indians, but never achieved it.
William Wells, also known as Apekonit, was the son-in-law of Chief Little Turtle of the Miami. He fought for the Miami in the Northwest Indian War. During the course of that war, he became a United States Army officer, and also served in the War of 1812.
Black Hawk, born Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, was a Sauk leader and warrior who lived in what is now the Midwestern United States. Although he had inherited an important historic sacred bundle from his father, he was not a hereditary civil chief. Black Hawk earned his status as a war chief or captain by his actions: leading raiding and war parties as a young man and then a band of Sauk warriors during the Black Hawk War of 1832.
John Okemos was a Ohioan Ojibwe (Chippewa) chief. He participated in Tecumseh's War and was a signatory of the Treaty of Saginaw. "Okemos" was the anglicised form of his Ojibwe language name ogimaans meaning "Little Chief". "John" was an adopted name.
Winamac was the name of a number of Potawatomi leaders and warriors beginning in the late 17th century. The name derives from a man named Wilamet, a Native American from an eastern tribe who in 1681 was appointed to serve as a liaison between New France and the natives of the Lake Michigan region. Wilamet was adopted by the Potawatomis, and his name, which meant "Catfish" in his native Eastern Algonquian language, was soon transformed into "Winamac", which means the same thing in the Potawatomi language. The Potawatomi version of the name has been spelled in a variety of ways, including Winnemac, Winamek, and Winnemeg.
Waubonsie was a leader of the Potawatomi Native American people. His name has been spelled in a variety of ways, including Wabaunsee, Wah-bahn-se, Waubonsee, Waabaanizii in the contemporary Ojibwe language, and Wabanzi in the contemporary Potawatomi language.
The Yellow River is a 62.3-mile-long (100.3 km) tributary of the Kankakee River in the Central Corn Belt Plains ecoregion, located in northern Indiana in the United States. Via the Kankakee and Illinois rivers, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River, draining an area of 427 square miles (1,110 km2).
Shabbona or Shab-eh-nay, sometimes referred to as Shabonee and Shaubena, was an Ottawa tribe member who became a chief within the Potawatomi tribe in Illinois during the 19th century.
Black Partridge or Black Pheasant was a 19th-century Peoria Lake Potawatomi chieftain. Although a participant in the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812, he was a friend to early American settlers and an advocate for peaceful relations with the United States. He and his brother Waubonsie both attempted to protect settlers during the Battle of Fort Dearborn after they were unsuccessful in preventing the attack.
Main Poc (1768–1816), also recorded as Main Poche, Main Pogue, Main Poque, Main Pock; supposedly from the French, meaning "Crippled Hand", was a leader of the Yellow River villages of the Potawatomi Native Americans in the United States. Through his entire life, he fought against the growing strength of the United States and tried to stop the flow of settlers into the Old Northwest. He joined with Tecumseh to push the settlers south and east of the Ohio River and followed him to defeat in Canada during the War of 1812.
Five Medals was a leader of the Elkhart River Potawatomi. He led his people in defense of their homelands and was a proponent of agriculture. Five Medals first appeared in eastern records after the Battle of Fallen Timbers, but disappears from those records shortly after the end of the War of 1812.
Tecumseh's confederacy was a confederation of indigenous peoples in the Great Lakes region of North America that began to form in the early 19th century around the teaching of Tenskwatawa, called The Prophet by his followers. The confederation grew over several years and came to include several thousand warriors. Shawnee leader Tecumseh, the brother of The Prophet, developed into the leader of the group as early as 1808. Together, they worked to unite the various tribes against the European settlers who had been crossing the Appalachian Mountains and settling on their land.