How the Pokagon Band Avoided Removal: Archaeological Evidence from the Faunal Assemblage of the Pokagon Village Site (20BE13)

Abstract

The Removal period is the time between the Treaty of Greenville in A.D. 1795 and the final expulsion of most Potawatomi from Michigan and Indiana by 1840. It was a time of rapid social change, when Native Americans developed many different adaptive strategies that are revealed by great cultural diversity in time and space. Archaeological investigations of the Pokagon Village site (20BE13) have provided new insights into the strategies that the wkama Leopold Pokagon and his associates used to avoid the removal of their band. The faunal assemblage from two middens at the site is compared with assemblages from other early nineteenth century Native American sites in the region, showing that the development of economic self-sufficiency through the adoption of European domesticated animals was an important part of the Pokagon Band’s anti-removal strategy.