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INDIAN REMINISCENCES BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN
INDIAN REMINISCENCES
OF CALHOUN COUNTIES
AND KALAMAZOO
COLLECTED AND CONTRIBUTED BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN
CALHOUN COUNTY
The Indians that formerly occupied Michigan were of the Algonquin family. The larger branch called Ojibways or Chippewas inhabited the northern part of the peninsula; the Ottawas, the region south of them, the Pottawattomies occupied the lower part of the peninsula and spoke one of the rudest dialects of the Algonquin language. In 1822 there were five thousand six hundred and sixty nine Ojibways at Saginaw. Since 1800 the potawattomies have inhabited the lower part of the Michigan territory, living in scattered bands independent of each other. And as they are the only Indians connected with the early history of central Michigan our narrative bides with them.
There are but meager traces of antiquity, and no trace of government among
them. The Chippewas and the Ottawas were under British influence during the war of 1812. The Pottawattomies were friendly to the American cause. These three tribes ceded all their lands about Lake Superior to the United States, and removed south of the Missouri river.
In 1870 there were four thousand nine hundred and twenty six Indians in Michigan. In 1874 there were only sixty Pottawattomies of the Huron band in this state. They lived in a rude hamlet situated on a patrimony of one hundred and sixty acres of original timbered land in the southern part of Calhoun county near Nottawa Sepe Prairie on which was formerly located the Nottawa Mission. The Methodist Episcopal church established this mission here in 1840, when they built a large log structure for a mission house, and a smaller one for a school house.
Michigan
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