Potawatomi

Potawatomi (properly Potewatmik, fire-makers, in allusion to their secession from the Ojibway, and their establishment of a separate council-fire), a tribe of North-American Indians of Algonquian stock. When first known (about 1670), they lived around Green Bay, Wisconsin. They subsequently moved south and eventually settled in lower Michigan. They were allied with the French in their wars against the Iroquois and took part in the conspiracy of Pontiac. In the War of Independence they fought for England, as also in that of 1812. In 1846 most of them were removed to a reservation in Kansas. Of these the majority have abandoned their tribal relations and become citizens. Others are in Wisconsin and the bulk in Oklahoma. They now number some 2500.