Sauganash......Billy Caldwell.

Do you like the study of history and how it affected our Potawatomi people?
I do and I've always wanted to know the truth about the various personalities among our people. Sometimes history was kind to us and at times we got the rascals of society, and they affected us not so good.....
Here is a piece on Billy Caldwell, if you have ever read on the old Potawatomi of Chicago of the 1830's......quite the guy, and in the end hung out with the Potawatomi who left Chicago....I wonder about that though.....
Another one is Shabni, who was actually Odawa, married into the Potawatomi people.

Nin se Neaseno.




If you've lived on the outer Northwest Side of the city, around Cicero and Peterson, you know the name Billy Caldwell. There's Billy Caldwell Woods, Billy Caldwell's Reserve, Billy Caldwell Golf Course, Billy Caldwell Post of the American Legion. And of course, Caldwell Avenue.
The neighborhood is called Sauganash. That was Billy Caldwell's other name.

Billy Caldwell is a figure of legend, but was a real person. Untangling his story has kept historians busy for nearly two hundred years.
William Caldwell Jr. was born near Fort Niagara, in upper New York, in 1780. He was the natural son of a British army officer and a Mohawk princess. There's some evidence that Billy's first name was actually Thomas.
The boy didn't have much standing in the society of his time--he was both a bastard and a "half breed." Billy was raised by the Mohawks, then spent some time in his father's household. At 17 he moved out on his own.
Caldwell apprenticed himself into the fur trade. By 1803 he was chief clerk in the Forsythe-Kinzie firm's new post at the mouth of the Chicago River. About this time he married into the Potawatomi tribe. His in-laws called him "Sauganash," which translates as "Englishmen."
In 1812 the Potawatomi attacked the American garrison at Fort Dearborn. The story goes that Caldwell arrived on the scene during the battle and saved the lives of the Kinzie family. That was Billy's account of what had happened. Historians have been unable to verify it.
Caldwell fought on the British side in the War of 1812. Afterward he lived in Canada. When several business ventures failed, he moved back to Chicago.
In Chicago Caldwell worked in the Indian trade, as a merchant, and as an appraiser. He made friends among the settlement's leaders. Because of his tribal connections and his fluency in several languages, he smoothed relations between the Americans and the native peoples.
In 1828 the U.S. government recognized Caldwell's work by building for him Chicago's first frame house, near what is now Chicago and State. The next year he was appointed chief of the Potawatomi. And that needs some explaining.
The Potawatomi knew that the Americans were going to force them out of the area. They wanted to get the best deal possible. Even though Caldwell was Mohawk--and only on his mother's side--they thought he could help them in treaty negotiations. So they accepted him as chief.
In 1830 the Potawatomi started signing off their land. Caldwell became a hero among the American settlers. Chicago's first hotel was named The Sauganash in his honor. The U.S. government awarded him a 1600-acre tract of land northwest of the city, Billy Caldwell's Reserve. He lived there with his Potawatomi band for three years.