Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and Chicago-based artist Andrea Carlson made a splash in 2021 when her piece “You are on Potawatomi Land” was installed along the RiverWalk in downtown Chicago.
To highlight some of the CHC’s archival holdings, the Hownikan is featuring photographs and family history of every founding Citizen Potawatomi family. The LeClair family history can be traced back to Wisconsin and Illinois, through war, forced removals, and kinship ties with the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, to present-day Pottawatomie County. Read more at cpn.news/leclair.
Through their early years in Potawatomi ancestral homelands in the north, a forced migration to Kansas and many challenges creating a new legacy in southern Pottawatomie County, the Lareau family drew upon their strength and resolve to persevere.
The roots of the Lafromboise family extend to present-day Chicago, Illinois, a history preserved through family stories and documentation that are now held at the CPN Cultural Heritage Center.
Bourbonnais-Tescier descendant Czarina Thompson began as a family history specialist at the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Cultural Heritage Center in 2005. Though the role has changed over the years as new technology and information becomes available, her attention to detail, extensive knowledge and love for helping Tribal members connect with their ancestors remain constant.
The Colonial and Intertribal War series brings brief introductions to the conflicts between the Potawatomi, Nishnabe, and other tribal and colonial powers spanning 200 years between 1628 and 1830. Throughout that time, the Potawatomi participated in nine major conflicts prior to the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and forced removal by the U.S. government along the Trail of Death. The Beaver Wars began in 1628 and were the longest of those nine conflicts, lasting more than 70 years.
The University of Oklahoma’s Ruggles Native American Music Series recently invited Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s women’s drumming group, De’Wegen Kwek (Our Women’s Drum), to share traditional and contemporary Potawatomi singing and drumming. De’Wegen Kwek was the first group comprised entirely of women to be featured in the Ruggles series.
To highlight some of the CPN Cultural Heritage Center’s archival holdings, the Hownikan is featuring photographs and family history of every founding Citizen Potawatomi family. Records show a long legacy of public service in the Johnson family history.
Citizen Potawatomi Nation received a $60,000 Tribal Heritage Grant to pursue research and restoration at the historic and sacred site of Uniontown Cemetery near Rossville, Kansas. The funds will be used to repair crumbling stone walls and gravestones at the cemetery and to conduct ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys of the area to confirm the location of a mass burial site where several Potawatomi ancestors are believed to have been buried following a cholera outbreak at Uniontown in 1849.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services recently awarded the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Cultural Heritage Center nearly $100,000. The funds will support the CHC’s efforts to modernize and enhance technology to improve the visitor experience.